Pokemon Crystal, previously known as Pokemon X, is to Pokemon Gold and Silver what Pokemon Yellow is to Pokemon Red and Blue. It features several minor upgrades from its predecessors, but in essence it’s still the same game. The classic Pokemon formula of adventuring, collecting, and battling is at a series best with Crystal. This is one of the best and most addictive role-playing games for the Game Boy Color. More information klik here
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Pokemon Crystal
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Welcome to the world of magic. Go into the world of magic that will bring you to feel bad magic. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Mobile Game by EA Mobile. A new game from EA Mobile is based on the upcoming blockbuster, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will begin in the fall. The mobile game for every sort of game, with the motive of the list. For more information klik here
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Nokia E71 Review
With its combination of excellent features and performance, matched with sleek design and its affordable price tag, Nokia's E71 manages to outshine recently released smartphones as our business phone of choice.
Design
Nokia has taken last year's E61 to the guillotine and, after a few simple strikes, has returned with one of the most attractive smartphones on the market at this time. Interestingly, this is where the smartphone market is finding the battle-lines drawn. The list of available specifications has become somewhat stagnant, and with Apple teasing the competition with the super-desirable iPhone, everyone else has been forced to play dress ups to catch the eye of fashion hungry business types.
In this regard Nokia has travelled down a more conventional path with its latest E-Series offerings. Devoid of the glossy piano-black casings of the N-Series, the E71 has a striking stainless steel finish, and avoids being the magnet for fingerprints most mobile phones tend to be these days. At only 10mm thick, the E71 is also one of the most portable smartphones available.
The most obvious concern for such a taut, trim business phone is how to pack a full QWERTY keyboard onto a device that still travels well in your pants pocket. Nokia has found a decent middle ground with its 37-button pad. Each of the keys is raised with a gentle pyramid shape distinguishing them from their neighbours. These keys are tiny, and miss-hits were a common occurrence for us during testing, but the more time we spent with the E71 the better we got. We had more trouble with the five-way navigation button where hitting the menu buttons to the sides by mistake opens new applications and menus and does become very tedious.
On-screen the latest Series 60 home screen and menus seems like a step back in time; the simplified graphics immediately reminded us of using Windows 3.11. This is obviously a deliberate move by Nokia to sacrifice visual flare for speedy performance, and as you'll read later, this trade off pays off.
Features
As a combination of hardware and software, Nokia's E71 is one of the best featured smartphones we've seen this year. Indeed, smartphone hardware advancement is reaching a plateau with most of the phones in this category featuring a very similar combination of HSDPA data speeds, Wi-Fi and A-GPS connectivity.
Where the E71 really impresses is the raft of included software tools. Like Windows Mobile, Nokia's Symbian Series 60 operating platform has enticed hundreds of developers to create a wide variety of interesting and useful third-party applications, but all too often this software is tucked away on the internet. Browsing the pre-installed software on the E71 is a very pleasant experience with discoveries like pre-programmed voice-commands, a business card scanner, a QR barcode reader, Windows Live and Yahoo Go messaging clients, a dictionary, measurement converter, plus several more.
In regards to enterprise specific features, the E71 has all the major bases covered including support for Microsoft Exchange for syncing email, contacts and calendars with Microsoft Outlook, plus the ability to access the virtual private networks (VPN) set up in your office. Similar to trends in other major smartphone operating systems, Series 60 now supports automatic retrieval of personal settings from your remote mailbox service, meaning that when you set up a new email address you only have to punch in your address and password and the E71 takes care of the rest.
When the working week is finished and you feel like escaping from the stranglehold of business messaging, the E71 features a profile switching mode to change not only the phone's appearance, but also active email accounts and settings. This profile switching is fast enough that you could switch over to your personal profile at lunchtime and respond to your mate's emails on your GMail or Yahoo accounts.
Performance
Reading the white sheet for the E71 you may think this new Nokia is drastically underpowered. Its 369MHz ARM processor and 128MB RAM seem underwhelming on paper compared with the 620MHz processor Apple use in the iPhone and the 192MB RAM HTC has crammed into the Touch Diamond. However, spec-crunching aside, the E71 keeps up with its competitors with lightning fast navigation and processing, even when multitasking. Lag spikes are infrequent and the Series 60 operating system has been impressively stable during our tests.
Some people may disagree, but we've found the E71 offers one of the best Web 2.0 browsing experiences we've come across in recent smartphones, and this includes the touchscreen handsets which are tailor-made for online activity. Whether we used Wi-Fi or HSDPA network data, we found Web browsing to be very fast, and page rendering for standard sites to be mostly accurate and zippy. Navigating sites with the five-way nav key may not seem as intuitive or accurate as using fingers on a touch display, but we've had a much more pleasing online experience than with the competition.
A-GPS is relatively new to Nokia's E-Series (the E90 features inbuilt GPS), but Nokia is certainly no stranger to GPS chipsets, as is obvious from its stellar performance. Similar to our impressions of the GPS in the iPhone, the E71 finds satellite signals in record time. Coupled with Nokia's impressive Maps 2.0 software and Nokia's Mobile Holder CR-106 (not included), the E71 may just be the phone that has you listing your TomTom on eBay.
With its smaller display, some handy power-saving options and its massive 1500mAh battery, the E71 manages a handy three days of battery life between cycles. To replicate everyday use we maintained a 3.5G connection, left Wi-Fi scanning on, activated push email, and listened to at least one hour of music a day in addition to moderate calling and messaging.
Overall
When we saw the E61 last year we loved it: a BlackBerry-esque handset that connects to anything and everything. Nokia steps it up to the next level with the E71, improving its connectivity with A-GPS, adding a camera, improving the 3G speeds to HSDPA and managing to slim the handset across all dimensions. This is exactly what we expect to see in the successor to a popular product line.
Perhaps the most astonishing fact is that on top of E71's list of improvements, Nokia has also trimmed the price with its RRP listed at AU$709. All things considered, this is an absolute bargain for one of this year's best smartphones.
Sony Ericsson W995 Review
The W995 under-performs where it counts. The screen is small and of a low-resolution and the web browser doesn't inspire web browsing. HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS are a waste with the software provided, but worst of all, the W995 is just too expensive.
Design
Here's the thing: we've been gearing up to describe the aesthetic of the W995 as a little boring. Sure, it's a sexy black number with a few pleasing touches of designer flair, but overall it looks the same as countless Sony Ericsson Walkman and Cyber-shot handsets of the last two years. The button placement, the slider, the keypad layout, all work together nicely, but there's nothing exciting here. We want something different, something new.
So while we were preparing to deliver this verdict, a funny thing happened: someone complimented the phone — this happens less frequently than you might think. A friend, having spotted the phone in our hands as we punched out an SMS, said with a cool shrug, "nice phone". Then it happened again, a different friend but a similar compliment. We drilled them for their thoughts, asking "Why do you like it? What's so cool about it?". They told us they like how solid it looked, which we won't argue against. Perhaps it's the subtle, faux wood-grain finish, but the chassis of the W995 looks like its been chiselled from stone.
But our complaints extend a little further than just its same-y Sony Ericsson look and feel, which obviously is sexier than we give it credit for. The W995 is a media-centric phone, pitched at 20-somethings who want video and music on the move. We're impressed the phone includes a 3.5mm headphone socket and comes bundled with an 8GB M2 memory card — plus Sony Ericsson has fitted a kick-stand on the back to rest the phone on a desk — but its 2.6-inch screen is totally wrong for this purpose. We loaded a bunch of video clips onto the phone and struggled to feel motivated to watch anything longer than a movie trailer on this screen size. The colour and contrast are both good, but the size and resolution is so underwhelming.
Around the edge of the W995 you can expect a few extra shortcut keys than your standard Nokia or Samsung. Alongside the dedicated camera key and charging port you find four Walkman buttons; one to open the media menu and three to control what you're listening to. Sony Ericsson gives these keys prominence, relegating the phone's volume keys to two tiny slivers at the bottom of the right-side, making it awkward to adjust volume during a call, and tricky to zoom in and out in camera mode without looking first at where to place your fingers.
Features
The "W" in its moniker tells us that the W995 belongs to Sony Ericsson's Walkman family, a well-loved range of music phones, but one that is coming to an end under the crushing weight of technology convergence. However, its Walkman branding doesn't necessarily mean the W995 has only music features.
For shoppers, the Walkman badge indicates Sony Ericsson's best audio hardware inside the phone, and a decent set of headphones in the box. Though Sony Ericsson has made the strange decision to include headphones that plug into the charging port via an adapter, even though the handset has a 3.5mm port on top. We tested the phone with a nice pair of Bang & Olufsen A8 headphones and it sounded great.
The other attention-grabbing feature is an 8.1-megapixel camera planted on the back of the handset. Matched with an LED-photolight and auto-focus, the W995 does an OK job of playing back-up camera, but we wouldn't recommend using it for important pics. Obviously, the output size is nice, but on close inspection the pictures we took were only average. Under optimal conditions, the W995 returned unnatural colours, leaning towards a pinkish hue, and the slow shutter speed left the focus soft in many of our images. Under less-than-perfect conditions, like at night or in a dark room, the W995 fails to deliver anything memorable. The photolight is great, we're impressed by how our night subjects looked at short distances, but outside of the area illuminated by the light, the images disappear into a grainy mess.
Web browsing is also disappointing. Using a NetFront browser (a relic of mobile browsing), the W995 struggles to render full-size pages. Scaled-down mobile sites, like m.cnet.com.au, is fine and fast to load, but users will find that many of the bookmarked sites on their desktops will struggle to render correctly, creating overlapping images and text on-screen. The shame here is that so many good browsers are available for Sony Ericsson to use, like Opera Mini for example. Here's hoping we see a vast improvement in this area before Sony Ericsson releases its Satio touchscreen smartphone.
Media Go
We tend not to dedicate space in a review to bundled software packages, but Sony Ericsson's Media Go deserves a special mention. Similar to iTunes, Media Go creates a library of media files and lets you sync these files with your handset. Unlike iTunes, Media Go does all the leg-work building your library; it will search your PC for compatible files and collect them in Video, Photo and Music categories.
The most significant feature of Media Go is the ability to re-encode video files before transferring them to your phone. The W995 is capable of playing MP4 and 3GP files, so Media Go takes all your other files; DivX, Xvid, WMV, etc, and converts them to an optimised MP4 file. This process takes sometime, especially if you want the software to re-encode several feature-length movies, but not having to chase a third-party program for this functionality is a godsend.
Performance
It might not have the world's best camera or an outstanding browsing experience, but the W995 does make a great mobile phone. During our tests we have no complaints about our experiences with basic phone functionality. Calling is clear and both the microphone and ear-piece speaker are solid performers. Messaging is fine too with the use of Conversations, Sony Ericsson's take on threaded SMS.
The real stand-out, however, is this phone's stellar battery life. We saw four-day cycles between charging the battery during our tests, and though exciting, this is a double-edged observation. On the one hand: four days is outstanding, on the other it serves as a reminder of how little we used this phone for watching videos and web browsing. We complain about the single-day battery life of the iPhone or of Google Android phones, but the fact is we use them more, we're inspired too by the size of their screens and zippy web browsing. The W995 entices us to neither.
Overall
On paper the W995 reads like a winner. Compare it to the iPhone and you have matching connectivity, similar media compatibility and a vastly superior camera resolution. In practice we found the W995 disappointing. Though you'll pay for HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS hardware, the W995 underutilises these features with poor software. As a media player, the W995 makes a fantastic music player but its small screen means it's a less-than-ideal video player, and for its RRP of AU$1109 we definitely expect more. If you want a good Sony Ericsson Walkman you'll get similar performance for half the price if you choose the W705 or a W890 instead.
Blackberry Bold 9000
Design
Firstly, a note to all our CrackBerrys friends: relax, it's still huge. BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) defy the recent slimming trends in mobile devices, and while the Bold may shave a millimetre off the dimensions of its forerunners, the difference isn't significant. This, of course, means plenty of room for the important things, like the full QWERTY keyboard.
RIM has definitely maintained the high level of expected quality with the BlackBerry Bold. The keyboard is the most notable example of this. We've tested most of the QWERTY keyboards on offer in 2008 and the Bold is still head and shoulders above them all. Each key is large (comparatively speaking) and features a tapered indentation which helps to define and separate these buttons. In the weeks we've had testing the Bold we've rarely found ourselves using the "backspace" key to correct typos from miss-striking the keyboard.
Similar to the BlackBerry Pearl series, the Bold makes use of a trackball for navigation. For the most part this style of menu navigation works well, although we did turn down the default sensitivity to help us move about the menus more accurately. When viewing Web pages, the trackball is excellent for scanning the page horizontally and vertically.
Surely the most outstanding physical feature of the Bold is its amazing display. This screen features an orthodox WQVGA resolution (480x320) positioned in landscape for widescreen media playback. At the launch of the Bold we watched several pre-installed video files, including the cinematic trailer for Speed Racer, and were astounded by the colour and clarity produced by this display.
Features
It's been a long time coming, but we finally have a BlackBerry with HSDPA fast internet data transfers. In unison with inbuilt Wi-Fi, the data speeds make the Bold a strong competitor in the handheld internet stakes, indeed it would make it one of the best were it not for a cumbersome browser. The Bold also features an on-board GPS receiver but likewise suffers from terrible preloaded BlackBerry Maps.
In the past, BlackBerrys have been considered class-leading messaging handsets, and in this department the Bold doesn't disappoint. Setting up a new email account couldn't be simpler than with the Bold; just punch in your email address and password and let the phone search through a massive database of known servers for all the necessary settings.
The Bold also features the best camera in a BlackBerry to date, a 2-megapixel shooter matched with an LED photolight for illuminating those trendy inner city bars you lounge in after a long week behind your desk. As you put your feet up on the weekend the Bold will also come in handy with a 3.5mm headphone input, meaning you can plug in your favourite headphones to listen to music or when you're watching videos.
Performance
The BlackBerry handset performance has been excellent in recent releases. The Pearl 8120 impressed us with its zippy performance, and in this regard the Bold stands up well. Featuring a 628MHz ARM processor, the Bold has more than enough power to handle everyday tasks lag free, and enough grunt so that graphics heavy processes, like video playback and Web page rendering, execute without extended pauses.
Perhaps more important to maintaining the BlackBerry reputation is ensuring excellent battery life, and again RIM has succeeded, with the Bold showing some of the longest battery cycles for smartphones with its range of connectivity features. During our tests we've maintained 3.5G and Wi-Fi connectivity, enabled push email on two separate services, and made moderate use of calls and messaging, and had enjoyed at least three days between charges.
As we mentioned briefly above, some of BlackBerry's own software solutions could do with some improvements. The BlackBerry browser is OK and renders pages well, but navigating standard pages, zooming and selecting links, could definitely be streamlined. That said, the screen is so sharp and clear that zooming is almost completely non-existent. As for mapping and navigation you may be stuck with Google Maps for the time being. Checking the coverage of BlackBerry's pre-installed mapping software shows us that Australian maps aren't included. There are a few third-party mapping solutions available, including one from Garmin, but be prepared to pay extra for the privilege.
Overall
The Bold is a logical and exciting step forward for the BlackBerry line, and fans won't be disappointed. Everything we've loved about BlackBerrys of old is present in the Bold (yes, including Brickbreaker), plus there's a couple of new tricks tossed in for good measure. The handset looks fantastic, though we could stand for it to be a tad slimmer, and some of BlackBerry's software needs further revision to make it as easy to use as the competition.
The BlackBerry Bold will be available through Optus, Vodafone and Telstra from the last week of August. Optus has announced it will sell the Bold on an AU$79 per month BlackBerry services plan, plus AU$10 per month in handset repayments. This is more expensive than you can expect to pay for other smartphones, like Nokia's E71, but then you don't care, right? Your boss is paying for it.
BlackBerry Curve 8330
BlackBerry Curve 8330 is a version of the Curve for CDMA carrirs like Sprint and Verizon. When you’ve got a lot on the go, the BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone helps keep you connected to the people and information that matter.
With email, phone, organizer, camera, video recorder, Internet access, supported mobile streaming and GPS capabilities at your fingertips*, you’ll have the flexibility and freedom to manage your busy life. The incredible multimedia player also lets you enjoy your music, videos and pictures – so you can have some fun along the way.
Power up the BlackBerry Curve smartphone and empower your life.
Blackberry 8820
Adding Wi-Fi connectivity to the popular, slim 8800 design, the BlackBerry 8820 smartphone keeps its predecessor’s top flight features: easy-to-use trackball navigation system, and internal GPS. It also offers what you expect from a Blackberry: an easy-to-type QWERTY keyboard, push email with attachment viewing options, and text (SMS and MMS) and instant (IM) messaging capabilities. This quad-band GSM phone is ready to take on the world, and it’s compatible with T-Mobile’s EDGE data network for Web browsing and quick downloads.
Technical Details :
* Thin, stylish Blackberry with Wi-FI connectivity (802.11b/g) as well as quad-band GSM and EDGE cellular networks
* Integrated GPS for real-time location on maps, driving directions, and more; support for T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home and MyFaves services
* Rich media player, easy-to-use trackball navigation, Bluetooth connectivity, expandable via MicroSD memory cards
* Up to 5 hours of talk time, up to 528 hours (22 days) of standby time; measures 4.49 x 2.60 x 0.55 inches (HxWxD)
* Includes: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, USB cable, holster, wired stereo handsfree headset, BlackBerry Desktop software CD
List Price: $349.99
Price: $149.99 (when purchased with new service plan)
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