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The Mobile Gadgeteer

Matthew Miller provides you with news, commentary and in-depth reviews of the latest in mobile gadgetry such as tablets, cutting edge smartphones, and portable gaming.

Matthew Miller

Matthew Miller started using mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned hundreds of devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes the latest and greatest foldables, wearables, and more, along with classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various social networks under the user name of "palmsolo."

Latest Posts

GSM SIM-unlocked Palm Centro now available for $299

There is still a soft spot in my heart for Palm OS devices since they were what I started out with back in 1997 (actually the OS looks just about the same as it was then) and this latest news has me considering a new Palm device. Palm announced that you can now purchase a SIM-unlocked Palm Centro for US$299. The Palm Centro has been a successful device for Palm on Sprint and AT&T, with the recent release also for Verizon. Now that it is available as a GSM unlocked device T-Mobile USA customers, and worldwide GSM customers, can now pick one up with another unique color scheme.

June 23, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

AT&T may pay Apple $325 for each iPhone 3G sold

I wrote a post about how it seems that AT&T was going to be the big winner when the iPhone 3G is launched in a couple of weeks due to the increase in data and text message rates and the monthly subsidy that will no longer have to be paid to Apple. According to one analyst report, AT&T may have some fairly significant up front costs before they start seeing the benefits of long term subscriber fees. AT&T is subsidizing the iPhone this time, much like the other mobile phone purchases made in the United States and may be paying Apple as much as US$325 for each iPhone 3G that is purchased.

June 23, 2008 by Matthew Miller in iPhone

Updated the HTC Touch Diamond and Advantage X7510 with new firmware

As regular readers know, I posted a couple of articles on my experiences with the HTC Touch Diamond (here and here are my latest two). For the most part, the device I have had has been a great performer with a fluid TouchFLO 3D experience, as shown in several of my videos, and decent battery life. I also wrote up my thoughts of the HTC Advantage X7510, focusing mainly on the hardware since the ROM was a test ROM. I was very pleased to receive the latest shipping ROMs for both devices on Friday evening and flashed both devices to see what has been improved.

June 22, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Enterprise Software

Have you checked out Alltop.com on your mobile device?

I wanted to let you know about a cool site that was launched by the famous Matt Kawasaki a while ago that I think you might find quite useful when trying to find the latest news and posts in areas you are personally interested in. The Alltop.com site is a collection of RSS feeds in 10 major categories, with a large collection of minor categories, that help you to quickly see what the latest postings are on your favorite sites. Alltop.com attempt to serve as an aggregator for "all the top" sites on the web. This ZDNet blog was recently placed into the Gadgets and Mobile categories.

June 21, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Enterprise Software

iCall will let you transfer a cellular call to VoIP on your Apple iPhone

I was checking out TUAW this morning and saw that a very cool VoIP application is under development for the Apple iPhone. This is not an application for jailbroken phones, but for iPhones that have been upgraded to the latest firmware supporting 3rd party applications. What makes this VoIP application particularly powerful is the ability to transfer a cellular call to WiFi during the call as shown in the YouTube video below. iCall seems to work quite well and will definitely be one of the first applications I plan to look for when the iPhone application store is launched.

June 20, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Networking

Should we be posting images and details of leaked mobile devices?

The mobile phone market is quite an exciting place to be and one of the ways to generate lots of hits on your site is to be the first to post pictures and/or a review of a rumored phone where you confirm that it does indeed exist. I have never had such a device myself, although I have had devices loaned to me by companies (under NDA) prior to their announcement and I have ALWAYS complied with the terms of those agreements. Charlie, from Nokia Conversations, just posted a blog post discussing his take on product leaks and I thought it was an interesting discussion.

June 19, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

Palringo IM client now available for BlackBerry devices

One thing that keeps bringing me back to S60 is the number and quality of 3rd party applications available for the platform, ranging from VoIP clients to games and multimedia apps. One of the best instant messaging clients I have tried is Palringo because it allows me to connect with Windows Live Messenger, Gtalk, AIM, Yahoo IM, and more all from a single application. In addition to traditional text IM, you can also quickly send photos and voice messages with Palringo. It is currently available for S60, Windows Mobile, and Java-supported devices and they just announced the availability for BlackBerry devices.

June 18, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Social Enterprise

Xohm WiMAX service to launch in Baltimore in September 08

We have been hearing about the on and off story of Sprint, Clearwire, and Xohm for quite some time now and I pretty much had given up hope of really seeing any commercial release of WiMAX with 4G right around the corner. According to Sprint CTO Barry West, Xohm will launch in September of this year. Apparently, the first rollout will start in Baltimore, Maryland and then move to DC and Chicago later in 2008.

June 18, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Networking

Mobile software Monday: SMS-Chat from VITO Technology

While you have companies like HTC and Samsung pushing the limits of the hardware and operating system level software integration on Windows Mobile, there are also several companies providing software applications to enhance your Windows Mobile experience. As readers know, I have been testing out the HTC Touch Diamond and since this device has Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional it supports threaded SMS out of the box. Joel Evans from Geek.com recommended I try out SMS-Chat on the Diamond because it offers a much richer threaded SMS experience. I loaded it up immediately and have to say that while it is nice to see a basic implementation of threaded SMS in the operating system, something like SMS-Chat is a much better solution for text messaging fans.

June 16, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Mobile OS

Nokia announces the coming availability of the E71 and E66 S60 enterprise-focused devices

The Nokia E61i that I owned for a few months was one of my favorite S60 devices and I was pleased to see that the rumors were true when Nokia announced the E71 and E66 devices this morning. The Nokia E71 is the successor to the E61 and E61i and includes a QWERTY keyboard, while the E66 continues with the E65 type business device with a small form factor and industrial grade design. Both of these devices are targeted to the enterprise user with specific utilities and applications designed for the business user. I hope we see these come to the U.S. officially and understand there will be U.S. 3G versions of the Nokia E71.

June 15, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Networking

One week with the HTC Touch Diamond; panoramic photos, VGA, and more experiences

I let you all know that HTC sent me an HTC Touch Diamond last Saturday and posted some ">unboxing and first thoughts on it later that day. I also showed you the Teeter game and sensor/vibration technolgy, followed by more thoughts, photos, and video on the FM radio, YouTube, and text input methods. Since last Saturday I have spent every day using the device as my primary device and have more experiences to tell you and show you in regards to performance, battery life, camera functionality, and more. I also show you a cool little Easter egg in the video so check that out.

June 14, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Hardware

MobileTechRoundup show #137, Who plans to buy an iPhone 3G?

There was lots of news in the mobile space this week with the iPhone 3G leading the way so we spent a good chunk of MobileTechRoundup show #137 talking about the new iPhone, 3rd party applications, and MobileMe. Listen to the show to find out if Kevin, James, or I plan to buy a new device on July 11th. We also briefly touched on the HP iPAQ 900 and Verizon Palm Centro announcements. I shared a bit about the HTC Touch Diamond I am evaluating. We also had a freeware of the show for S60 owners, Mail for Exchange 2.5.

June 13, 2008 by Matthew Miller in iPhone

Sprint announces low cost unlimited everything shared plans

Back in February Sprint announced their new Unlimited Everything plan for just under US$100. However, if you wanted to use this with a family plan the cost was significant at US$90, then US$80, etc. for additional lines. In most cases not all phones on the family plan lines need the unlimited minutes and I know from my experiences it would really only be my wife who would need that many minutes. Sprint recognized that some more options were needed at today announced some new very attractive options for family/shared plan consumers.

June 12, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Telcos

Flixwagon and Qik demo streaming video from an iPhone

Flixwagon made an announcement about an upcoming iPhone client earlier today, followed shortly by an announcement from Qik that they too have an iPhone client going to alpha testers soon. The clients run on jailbroken iPhones, but should eventually be coming to the iPhone 3G and original iPhone when the 2.0 software update is released.

June 12, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Mobility

Palm Centro available for $99.99 from Verizon Wireless on 13 June

The Palm Centro is currently the shining star of the Palm product lineup and following on the success of its debut with Sprint and then AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Palm today announced that the Centro will be available starting tomorrow, 13 June. Like with Sprint and AT&T you will be able to pick one up for US$99.99, after rebate and service plan.

June 11, 2008 by Matthew Miller in Hardware