accessory

Accessories for the Nokia N800 start showing up on Amazon

October 24, 2011 | By Surur

nokia800cover

Guess what just popped up on Amazon. The Nokia 800 covers we spotted in this video here has now made it into the store, looking pretty much the same. The silicon case will be £9.99 and will be shipping on November the 28th, hopefully not indicating that the handset will only be released so late into next month.

Via the MyNokiablog

Thanks Isaac for the tip.

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Nokia to release audio accessories by Monster

October 5, 2011 | By Surur

Pocketnow have managed to get their hands on some promotional material from Nokia showing their new Monster-branded headphones, the Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headsets.

A particularly interesting element to this is that HTC recently purchased a controlling stake in Beats by Dr Dre, who’s kit are also ODMed by Monster Cable. The implication would be that the audio quality would be as good as Beats headsets, but without the brand name or paying $300 million.

The whole issue should be clarified at Nokia World, coming up on the 26th October.

Nokia Sea Ray silicone cases show up in Nokia N9 video

September 15, 2011 | By Surur

These days you never know what people will notice in an even seemingly innocuous video.

In a video touting the design of the Nokia N9 3 silicone cases for the Nokia Sea Ray also made a cameo appearance, differentiated from those for the N9 by the position of the flash and the presence of a camera button hole.

Now if the handset would only make a surprise appearance in stores also…

See the video after the break.

Continue reading →

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A look at HTC’s new Dock interface

September 2, 2011 | By Surur

The HTC Titan and HTC Radar will have a Dock accessory available, designed to be used by the bedside for charging the phone and to allow the phone to be used as an alarm clock.

WPCentral managed to grab a screen shot of the app in action, here composited on the picture of the dock accessory by Engadget.

The app will show the date, current weather, HTC multimedia apps, including their movie service and HTC Photo Frame for a picture slide show, and also allow music to be played.

It is not yet known if the app will start automatically when the phone us plugged in, but the Engadget picture suggests not.

Update: Pocket-Lint also captured the phone in its dock and was able to confirm, in their preview of the Radar, that the Dock interface will indeed start up automatically.

Read their full first look at the handset here.

Thanks Ricardo for this picture of the HTC Titan dock via thisismynext.com.

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HTC Titan and Radar will have Dock Accessories

September 1, 2011 | By Surur

Engadget revealed at their hands-on that HTC’s new devices will have docks available as optional accessories, allowing the devices to charge overnight and be used as alarm clocks.

Almost makes one wish Windows Phone 7 hand a bit better landscape support…

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Fujitsu IS12T to come with swappable battery covers

August 25, 2011 | By Surur

The Fujitsu IS12T may not be coming with a huge library of localized apps, but it does with all thats needed to satisfy that other Japanese obsessions with their phones – accessories.

Nanapho reports that battery covers are swappable and can be combined in any combination, and are sold separately just for this purpose at around $4.50, creating so called “exotic” coloured devices.

The stores are also fully stocked with the more mundane screen protectors, softcases and hard cases and other accessories, showing at least a significant commitment from the retailer launching the handset.

Editorial : Goodbye, Steve.

August 25, 2011 | By Pradeep

When I woke up this morning, its was a shock to read that Steve Jobs retiring from the post of CEO of Apple, though I know he is going to retire soon.

Steve Jobs retirement is a great loss to technology world. He along with Bill Gates transformed our world with computing industry. While Gates focused on volume from low level, Jobs focused on margin from high level. Unarguably they are the pioneers in our industry. Steve and Bill competed other and fighted with each other throughout their careers, but helped each other when needed. In fact, when Apple was about to go bankrupt in 1997, Microsoft helped Apple to survive by investing $150 million without any conditions and promised to develop Office, Internet Explorer and other Microsoft products on Macintosh platform. Steve Jobs used that opportunity to turn near bankrupt corporation into an world’s most valuable company, more importantly valuable than Microsoft. That’s an incredible job. Jobs on his side often criticized the design sense of Microsoft as “just have no taste” that lead Microsoft indirectly to focus on design more than ever.

When Bill Gates left Microsoft few years ago, it was not the same situation as Steve Jobs. Bill appointed Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft several years before his retirement and left the company on a date he announced two years before. Whereas in Steve’s case, if was on/off situation, whenever Steve’s health goes bad, Tim Cook will presume his role of CEO. And at last now, Tim has replaced Steve as full time CEO of the company. Its important to note that these two product guys, Bill and Steve has chosen two business guys Ballmer and Cook as their successors.

I personally inspire Steve Jobs’s design sense and marketing words. He is just so perfect for Apple fans. Apple fans will go mad even if he says that Apple invented phone ! ! I will really miss his Keynote presentations and the usage of the word “magical” and his own reality distortion field. I often thought in the recent years that Steve Jobs should have left Apple earlier to start his own medical research firm to find medicine for diseases like pancreatic cancer which he suffers from, that would have saved lives of thousands of people. This idea comes to my mind whenever he is on the stage presenting about his product that it’s slimmer than ever. Actually he became slimmer as his products became slimmer due to his poor health.

Anyway, I’m happy for Steve Jobs on his decision to leave Apple. Its interesting to note that both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will focus on health after their professional work, while the former will focus on public health, the later on personal health.

For now, Good Bye, Steve.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

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JOYSTICK-IT for iPhone will work on Windows Phones also

June 16, 2011 | By Surur

stick From time to time we hear complaints from our gaming readers that Windows Phones need real buttons for games (the most recent being our review of Sonic 4). ThinkGeek has created a solution for the iPad and iPhone which will work for any device with a capacitive screen, and will turn a virtual D-pad into a pretty solid real one pretty quickly.

The solid aluminium joystick with suction cup is removable and repositionable, should work with numerous games and costs $17.99.

Read more about the accessory at Thinkgeek here.

Via Geek.com

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64 GB microSD cards are here–will we benefit?

May 29, 2011 | By Surur

4computex_mircroSDXC_c6_64gb-outline110419 Kingmax has announced their release of the first 64GB microSD cards. The SDXC cards are class 6 and are compatible with the SD 2.0 standard.

Of course Windows Phone has a complicated relationship with memory cards, with most handsets in fact sporting one, but nearly no handset allowing or recommending the user replace or upgrade them.

It does open the door however to the OEM shipping a selection of handsets with higher capacity approved and installed memory, but with 64 GB SD cards retailing between £100 and £300 I would make these devices pretty cost prohibitive.

Likely the main benefit would be for the 64 GB cards to push down the cost of 32 GB ones, and thereby hopefully increase the proportion of handsets shipping with more than the minimum of storage.

Are any of our readers planning to splurge on one of these cards and try it out on your phone? Let us know below.

via MobilityDigest.com

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Microsoft Netherlands: Mango coming mid-October, dual-core phones to be supported in the future

May 27, 2011 | By Surur

2011145ts-sonneveld-microsoft Maarten Sonneveld, Mobile Communications Business Group Lead at Microsoft Netherlands has spoken to Nieuwemobiel.nl in the wake of the Mango launch.

He revealed a more specific date than the usual Fall, saying "Windows Phone Mango will sometime in the fall available, probably around mid-October.”

He also said he expected updates to existing handsets will come before actual devices, which make sense given that we have been told new Mango handsets will be released throughout the year rather than in a wave like last yet.

He acknowledged that Windows Phone 7 currently had a small market share, noting that when attending cell phone shops as a mystery shopper sales staff steered him away from a Windows Phone.

"Recently I visited with a five-member Dutch team as Windows Phone mystery shopper a number of telecom stores, to experience how Windows phone was picked up by the telephone business. I asked a salesperson to a device where I can open Word and Excel Sheets. He advised me to get an Android device. "

"When I asked if Windows phone was a good choice, the seller told me that I should not choose a Windows handset. "Maybe it’s a because Nokia will soon participate," said the salesman. We hear often that people expect that Nokia will make the difference for Windows Phone. "

“It is true that we only have a small market share, but it is our goal next year is growing very fast. Last year was an initial period. "

Speaking to the future, he notes the range of specs and price points will grow.

"We will continue with the hardware requirements of Windows Phone, but we must look to the future with dual core processors, but also with simpler hardware. It is an asset that the Windows Phone experience on cheaper devices is feasible. "

Verizon HTC Trophy To Cost $149.99 At Costco

May 19, 2011 | By Pradeep

Last month Pocketnow reported that HTC Trophy for Verizon showing up on Best Buy website for $599.99. After the multiple delays in the HTC Trophy for Verizon launch, some representative from HTC have confirmed that it will launch on May-26, and that confirmation is now official. Today pocketnow reported that HTC Trophy found on Costco Warehouse inventory system with the price tag of $149.99 with leather case and a car charger. Not a bad deal for long awaiting Verizon Windows Phone users, right?

via: Pocketnow

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Windows Phone 7 certified memory cards start showing up in AT&T stores

April 15, 2011 | By Surur

sandisk-8gb-microsd-wp71

That took a while.

MicroSD cards specifically certified by Microsoft to work with the Samsung Focus have now started to appear in AT&T stores.

MicroSD cards and Windows Phone 7 had been a complicated saga on Windows Phone 7, with cards being locked to devices, and many expensive and fast cards having the wrong characteristics to work with Windows Phone 7, meaning phones would often run into errors once the OS started storing information on the cards.

Microsoft promised to release cards specifically certified to work with Windows phone 7 some time ago, and according to Engadget the cards have finally started appearing in stores.

The card on offer at present is an 8GB memory card for $32, which by itself it not a large sum of money, but which is pretty expensive for such a small card.

Are any of our readers planning to pick up a card soon? Let us know below.

Thanks MobilePaddy for the tip.

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InvisibleSHIELD for WP7 Follow-up Review

March 6, 2011 | By andrewbares

I previously reviewed the Installation Process of InvisibleSHIELD, but after using it for a month now, I can write a complete review.

As I said in the installation review, applying InvisibleSHIELD is just about as easy/tough as applying any other scratch protection system. InvisibleSHIELD’s system is possibly tougher to install since you have to spray the protectors with an application solution, which adds an extra step to the equation, but otherwise it’s basically the same. The toughest thing was peeling the protectors off of the non-adhesive sheets of paper they came on; you’ll need to use your fingernails to peel those off!

Once you have the shield applied, some of the very small bubbles will work themselves out over a few days. Anything relatively large won’t. By a “small” bubble, I mean a bubble that is barely a bubble; one that is almost nonexistent. The first thing you will notice about the screen protector is that it looks bumpy. Unfortunately, that’s how it will always look. The texture of the screen protector has that bumpy texture to it, which is visible when you see reflections on the screen. It doesn’t reduce glare at all, it just deforms the reflections slightly. That gives the device a cheap look in my opinion.

Otherwise, the screen protector does a good job of keeping the fingerprints away. And it of course does a good job of keeping the scratches off. You can take a set of keys and scratch away at your phone, and nothing will happen. Therefore, on the protection side of things, InvisibleSHIELD lives up to its promise. However, on deeper scratches, it seems to leave an indented trace of where the keys traveled over the screen protector. That’s not a deal breaker, but once again, that looks a bit cheap when you notice it in the reflections.

In the end, I would recommend buying Wrapsol over InvisibleSHIELD. Both protectors successfully do their job and actually improve the feel of the touchscreen (your finger glides over the screen more easily), but the bumpy texture of InvisibleSHIELD causes the device to look cheap and less classy. Wrapsol retains the slick glossy look of the normal screen, but functions exactly the same in every other way.

InvisibleSHIELD: http://www.zagg.com/ (Available for the HTC 7 Surround, 7 Trophy, HD7; Samsung Focus, Omnia 7; Dell Venue Pro)

Wrapsol: http://www.wrapsol.com/ (Available for the HTC HD7; Samsung Focus, Omnia 7)

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