OnlyGizmos

We live technology, we dream technology, we wakeup every morning to see new gadgets and gizmos; and here we have a rich and prime source of Latest Gizmos and Gadgets - Gadget Advisor. A true and fresh source for all your most wanted gadgets.

Universal Remote Control: Supporting over 200000 gadgets from 5000 different brands these are Logitech Harmony Advanced Universal Remote Control.

Network Media Player: DViCo TViX M-6500A Network Media Player supports full HD (HD 1080i/720p/1080p Video output) and a wide variety of formats.

Online Backup Services: This is a gem! The world is rapidly moving online, with your content and work not being dependent on one system. Gadget Advisor reviews the best Online Backup Services.

The site is new but, Gadget Advisor is committed to providing clean and useful content. Their mission is to provide the best blend of technology, keeping a firm check on what the readers want! We would certainly be keeping a track on Gadget Advisor. Keep up the good work guyz.

Broadband is a common household term today. Right from our school going kids to business professionals, everyone depends on it. For us updating media content 24×7 online requires a robust and fast connection. Though we are blessed with a always on high speed line at our office in US back here in India the broadband speed isn’t that impressive.

There are two major requirements that one has from a good broadband connection; 1) A reliable connection with minimum downtime and 2) A decent upload and download speed. Though ISP’s advertise high speeds, more often than not the customers end up getting significantly less speed. And it has become a factored element while applying for a good broadband connection. We take it for granted that what we will get would be somewhat lower than what is advertised. Just hoping that this one won’t be as bad as the last one

Broadband speed test is something that we regularly do, to test our connections. Each time we use different solution for speed test to get a fair idea of what our ISP is offering us. Today we tested our new ISP with Broadband Expert and the results were good enough. During peak traffic time we are getting an upload speed of 0.99Mbps; which sure isn’t the fastest in town, but certainly better then our neighbors

Head here to check your Broadband speed and get more details.

So what are the features you expect from that ultimate mobile device?

• Good Browsing (A full featured browser and emailing app)
• Big enough screen, that won’t strain your eyes
• Ease of typing -  A full qwerty that can handle your fingers
• IM (Gtalk, Yahoo IM etc)
• And good connectivity (Bluetooth AD2P, Edge / 3G, WiFi…)
• ample of storage
• last but not the least, a swift OS

Just as we start, we sure know that you won’t be preparing your 20 page month end sales report on a Treo. The purpose best served by a smart phone would be checking and replying to your emails, read through email attachments / docs / spreadsheets, be online on IM, browse some net and off course make calls!

• Apple iPhone 3G -  For years iPod fans were waiting for a Phone integration. But this is much more than that. Though the iPhone is not the best business phone to start with, it offers some great applications and probably the best Browsing experience on a handheld. iPhone Safari simply rocks. To if your priority is mainly surfing the web, iPhone is probably the best option. With a few good apps you are all set with a good IM and not to forget YouTube, GPS / Google Maps, the massive storage, WiFi. The only downer here is the Keyboard. The touchscreen can be tricky, but the media functions covers up for that.

• Nokia E90 - The God phone as it was called when it first launched. Offers a variety of features GPS, QWERTY + NumberPad, 3G, Wifi … Add to it the Opera Mini and you are good for the net. Not tested Fring on this, but IM won’t be an issue I guess.  But a bulky design + Symbian OS disappoints me. It gets really slow as time progresses (data load). Overall if you like the communicator concept, this will work for you, but not for heavy use!

• Nokia E71 - Nokia E series has been a super hit. And personally these E60’s and now the E71 with QWERTY and Blackberry desing is a allround winner. They don’t cost you a bomb and still offer a good pack of features. Ideally the E71 with Blackberry Connect and slim design is a deadly combination for biz users, but they Nokia has not stopped offering Blackberry Connect! My only complain is the lack of a good inbuilt flash memory (guess that gets compensated by the pricing). But if your priority is lot of browsing and only browsing and continuous browsing the small screen might not please you!

• HTC Shift / Advantage -These are huge and bulky. They are certainly GOD for web browsing, actually not just www but a lot of other things aswell. But IMO they cross the limit to be called a handheld or mobilephone.

And if you still need a Phone with better internet, rather go for a good Netbook, consider EEE!

The essence of Google is not just their good products or good policies for their employees. Its actually the mindset that they follow, the way they do things. Here I was recently reading about a Firefox App developer’s experience with Google. Apparently his application was causing some problems with Google. So instead of taking down his Firefox Extension the Google lawyers instead called him and connected him to a Google engineer. Thus convincing him to take down the application until the necessary changes are made.

Not only that the techie received some Google Goodies soon after, appreciating his efforts. Here we can see that Google has a polite and generous approach to everything. It would have been really easy for them to go legal and take the trouble making App down very conveniently. But this positive attitude and acts will ensure that Long Lives Google!

Though I haven’t had the opportunity to hold the E71 for too long, the few minutes that I had with is enough for a short review. I am currently using a E61i (and my next upgrade most likely is E71) and I have used the Treo 650 and the E62 for a long time. So whats so common in all these? Well, the QWERTY keyboard! Ask any Blackberry user what he loves in his cell, and he would undoubtedly tell you that the pleasure of typing on the QWERTY is addictive, and add to that a fast and responsive OS and you would have a winner. The E71 is very handy and probably much more sleek than its predessors

Here is another 5MP horse heating up competition in the high end camera mobile segment. SE fans have been waiting for the next 5MP ever since the Sony Ericsson K850i came in. The Sony Ericsson C902 is a simple, slim and plain 5MP camera phone which ends up being compared to the Nokia heavy weights. One thing we never understand is the reason why Sony Ericsson ignores data features so badly. A couple of years back they were the last ones to start offering EDGE, and now the high ends like K850i and the C902 lacks WiFi. Comeon guyz its 2008!!

Design:
The C902 is a slim candy-bar design, with no weird key placement like the K850i. The camera is seen no where untill you slide the top of the screen to reveal the lens. So if camera phones are banned in your office, this might well be a phone with a hidden camera that will let you sneak through the security (really!!). In hand the SE C902 gives a very solid feel and is much more (comfortable) easier to handle than the Nokia N95 or the Sony Ericsson K850i. Its really slim at 10.5mm.

The sides of the C902 are nicely designed with the volume buttons placed on the bottom (yeah sounds odd) on the right side, just next to the camera button. Though for cellphone users this is new, but Digicam users are used to have the Zoom buttons just next to the Camera click button. The charger / data socket is on the left.

Verdict:
The C902 is no wonder. It lacks WiFi, GPS, Xenon flash and the only thing that impressed us is the simple design. No we don’t like simple, but then after seeing the horrible (and fat) K850i this slim and simple C902 suits us a little more. At just Rs 2000 ($50) more up for grab is the Nokia N95 which still looks a better option. The C902 leaves a few features but with strong media and a good battery life SE fans would love this K850i upgrade.

(Also I would have loved to see some more colour variations in the C902, currently they offer only the Black colour. Maybe red would look good).

Sony Ericsson C902 and C902i are the same model, ask SE why they confuse …!

How many of you have been bugged by cellphone cos ringing your phone between a good enough afternoon nap? Or while you were enjoying some movie out at the Cinema? Between a meeting? … !! Irritating it is. These automated calls are annoying and disturbing. Previously we only had to face the tele-callers from banks calling us for loans or credit cards, but now I am really fedup of these automated calls on my Reliance landline and my mom’s Vodafone (which most of time times is with me). Just as I type this, I am registering on the Vodafone website for Do Not Disturb and have already informed my lanline service providers CS that I have taken this connection to make and receive calls and not to listen to your advertisement! But is it fair for them to activate such calls without our consent? Is there any law to stop such automated calls immediately once the user opts for DND?

Do Not Call needs an Upgrade! Kill the automated calls. Normally in case a user opts for DND the service providers needs to communicate the DND data to many DSA’s and channel partners who make the calls on their behalf, they request some time (I guess upto 45 days) to get this request to action. But these automated calls where I have to hear some silly chaiya chaiya every now and then should be off with immediate effect. Whats even more irritating is that these calls come from normal looking numbers instead of some special 5 digit or special no like 98200000…. So you won’t really disconnect before picking up the call. And add to it different numbers that they use.

Camera Phones have made it big in the cellphone market in the past 2 years. Such that they outsell the number of Digital Cameras sold in the last few year. While a decent 2 Megapixel camera phone is common, the 3MP’s and 5MP’s have made a bold entry aswell (not to forget the upcoming Sony Ericsson 8.1MP).

Now lets get a little more deep in these figures that we read above (I really hate these numbers but need to mention them here). How many of those camera phones that outsold DigiCams were of 2MP or above? The fact remains that most mobiles sold today are the low-end ones which offer a basic VGA cam (some with 1.3MP or a simple 2MP). No I don’t mean to say that good camera phones won’t (or haven’t) outsell the proper Digital Cameras or Camcorders, but the food for thought lies in “Have these camera phones taken away the Digital Camera market by attracting the Real DigiCam users? By making them sell their DigiCams and go for a good camera phone?“.

The fact that I have noticed is, 8-10 people around me haven’t even turned on their mobile camera in the last 7 days. Though I don’t have any official figures, I would love to conduct a survey to see how and how much do people use their cellphone cameras. But what disappoints me is the competition put up by the DigiCam makers. Today a 5MP Digital Camera is available for $100 (Rs 4000) in India, but this came at a serious compromise of quality.

Though I don’t know how many of you reading this are serious about photography but anyone who has used a decent Digital Camera with a Optical Zoom would agree with me. Till recent I used to have a really Old Sony T-3 (5MP with 3x Optical Zoom) and none of the camera phones still impress me for 1 basic reason: There is no OPTICAL ZOOM offered! Another misconception is ‘higher MegaPixel = Better Camera’. But as Mr Mahaveer (of SAPL) always mentions to me, “The quality of the image depends on the lens, not the Megapixel”. This is probably why  My good old Treo 650 with a old VGA camera beats all the 1.3MP phones in the market in terms of quality.

If these popular camera phones are to really capture the REAL Digital Camera market then manufacturers would need to really UP the competition. Xenon flash and high resolution is the first step, but the sugar coat would really be the Optical Zoom.

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Although HP Mini Note is not a low budget portable, we couldn’t resist publishing a comparison with the Eee PC! The Eee PC has been the best choice for low end users looking for portability only, whereas the Mini-Note 2133 offers much more. Here is the show down vs the two:

The touch technology has undoubtedly been the biggest revolution in cellphones in the last one year. Last year we saw two major releases which heated up the competition amongst mobile manufacturers. This was the Apple iPhone and the HTC Touch, and now we have seen Apple bring the touch technology in macbooks, and windows unveiling its Touch plans for Windows 7.

For the handhelds, Apple iPhone has been a great success but the HTC Touch managed to get a head-start globally and became very popular, selling in millions. Since then HTC has offered a upgraded HTC Touch Dual and lately its biggest announcement for 2008, the HTC Touch Diamond. We still await the big release from Apple (the new 3G iPhone), which again faces competition from HTC which has again managed to release its iPhone rival before Apple.

The early videos that we saw for the HTC Diamond highlighted its amazing touch functionality, running on Windows Mobile 6.1 pro @ 528MHz. The TouchFlo 3D (The new touch technology from HTC) makes you forget that you are running  Windows Pocket PC, so in my opinion it would be easy for first time Pocket PC users, who haven’t used a standard WM before. Diamond’s 2.8″ LCD along with Opera mobile gives smooth web-browsing, the D pad on the front also doubles up as a touch sensitive scroll wheel - this allows you to zoom into a web page precisely. Also not to forget the loads of third party softwares available for the Diamond.

Though the HTC Diamond has a greatly improved performance (compared to other HTC devices), it won’t beat the iPhone (powered by Mac OS) in speed. Diamond has a impressive 3.1 Megapixel camera and 4GB of internal storage.

The weather application, the scrolling through the images, the email alerts, everthing on the Diamond is highly animated with the new Touch Flo 3D. HTC Diamond has a strong 8.8/10 from TestFreaks user reviews and ratings, and we are sure it will live up to the hype. HTC Diamond makes it debut in Europe first, and we shall get more in it as soon as we get out hands on it out here.

… while we wait and see what Apple has to offer with the rumored 3G iPhone, HTC Diamond is the best bet for 2008.