Mad4 Mobile Phones Orange

Blackberry Storm flying off the shelves

by Patrick Altoft on December 7, 2008

According to an article today in Mobile News the Blackberry Storm is flying off the shelves.

One staffer in London said: “We have had overwhelming demand for the handset. We are still trying to get through the pre-orders.

“In the first week we sold more than 200 handsets, and could have sold a lot more. It’s the best device on the market, and when you compare it to the iPhone, it does more, and is cheaper.

They questioned a Phones4u advisor who said:

A Phones 4U advisor said: “We are getting stock on average every other day, and sell out within an hour of it being booked on.

“Stock varies between 10-15 a time, but every other customer that walks in wants one. It is virtually the only handset we sell now, sales have been amazing.”

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Win a Panasonic DMP BD 35 Blu-Ray player

by Patrick Altoft on December 5, 2008

Panasonic DMPBD35 Blu-Ray playerOur friends over at Electric Pig are giving away two Panasonic DMP BD 35 Blu Ray players courtesy of Empire Direct.

To win simply head over to the contest page and add your details.

Mini review via Cnet

The Panasonic DMP-BD35 significantly changes the game. It’s a Profile 2.0-compliant player with onboard decoding for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, and it carries a $300 list price. Furthermore, it offers excellent image quality on Blu-ray movies and it looks pretty good with standard DVDs as well.

In many ways the PS3 is still a better Blu-ray player, especially when it comes to responsiveness and the fact that you can use it play games, stream media, and rent movies. But for home theater fans who just want to watch Blu-ray movies, the DMP-BD35 is the best value we’ve seen, and so it deserves our Editors’ Choice award–the first we’ve given to a Blu-ray player.

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Nokia has announced the Nokia N97 today and already people are wondering if it has the feature set to become an iPhone, Blackberry and Google Phone killer all rolled into one.

Nokia N97

With a 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA and qwerty keyboard it beats the iPhone in terms of features hands down. For mainstream users who want a decent camera and Blackberry/Google Phone style keyboards this is a dream device.

Nokia expects the handset with a large touch screen, retailing for 550 euros ($693) before taxes and subsidies and due to reach market in the first half of 2009 will bolster its N-Series smartphone offering.

ere’s a run-down of the specs: tri-band HSDPA 3G support; 802.11b/g Wi-Fi; aGPS and stand alone GPS; 3.5-inch touch resistive touch screen that measures 640 x 360 pixels in a 16:9 widescreen format; 32GB of built-in memory, with support for another 16GB with the addition of a microSD card; 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, LED flash and video capture at 30 frames per second; on-board accelerometer and compass; and support for Flash Lite 3.0 and Flash Video in the browser. Not bad. Not bad at all.

As for the hardware, the preview units we saw were literally built by hand and the product managers couldn’t stress enough that they are many generations away from being final. That said, the hardware was very good. The hinge that slides the top half of the phone open was solid and had no side-to-side play. The keyboard was spacious and comfortable to type on. The buttons all felt good, and the materials were quality all around.

Via

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Sony Ericsson C905 Already a Top Seller

by Patrick Altoft on November 27, 2008

Sony Ericsson C905

The Sony Ericsson C905, recently seen in the Bond film Quantum of Solace, is already one of the biggest selling phones in the UK, having topped sales charts within days of it going on sale.

Available in metallic finishes of either gold of silver or in the standard black finish, the C905 features an 8 Megapixel Xenon flash-assisted camera in its arsenal, along with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, an MP3 player and capacity for memory expansion of up to 8GB via the M2 memory card slot.

Image from mobile-phones.co.uk

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Samsung Pixon and LG Renoir Already Top Sellers

by Patrick Altoft on November 27, 2008

According to industry insiders the Samsung Pixon is tipped to be one of the top selling phones, potentially selling more handsets than the Tocco.

Samsung Pixon

With a fantastic 8MP camera to rival the LG Renoir and a screen measuring 3.2-inch, the touchscreen is a 240 x 400 resolution-boasting WQVGA TFT LCD number. The camera has a 16x digital zoom, auto-focus, face detection and geo-tagging, and there’s even a dedicated photo browser to view and share your pics.

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Sony Ericsson W705 Walkman phone

by Patrick Altoft on November 24, 2008

Earlier this month Sony Ericsson announced the Sony Ericsson W705 Walkman phone - the latest high end music player in the Walkman range.

The quad-band W705 (aka RIKA, the G705 clone) with UMTS/HSPA 900/2100 support shares the same Clear Bass / Clear Stereo audio quality found in the W980 Walkman while packing DLNA-certified WiFi, shake control and SensMe music manipulation, a 2.4-inch display, 4GB of bundled memory card storage, an FM radio, 3.2 megapixel camera, Google Maps, and an accelerometer for what’s quickly becoming a ubiquitous auto-rotating display feature on cellphones.

It also packs Bluetooth, allowing it to stream audio out to the newly announced MBS-900 Bluetooth 2.1 channel speaker with integrated FM radio. You know, if you’re a fan of compressed audio and short battery life.
Sony Ericsson W705

More info, via Slashgear:

The Bluetooth speaker, meanwhile, supports 2.1 channels with integrated stereo speakers and subwoofer. Connectivity is either wireless or via a 3.5mm input; we’re thinking you’ll get better quality sound from the latter. The MSB-900 has a monochrome OLED display for track titles and music settings, plus has an FM radio. Music is automatically muted when the phone rings.

The Sony Ericsson W705 (and the W705u) will be available in selected markets in Q1 2009, pricing to be announced, in red or silver. The MSB-900 will also be available from Q1 2009.

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Samsung Pixon hitting UK stores this week

by Patrick Altoft on November 17, 2008

We are hearing rumours that the Samsung Pixon is coming to Phones4U stores this week, possibly on Thursday. Initially it’s likely the handset will be on the Orange and O2 networks.

Samsung Pixon

The Pixon was supposed to arrive in October so it’s a couple of weeks late. Samsung have been doing quite a bit of marketing for this phone so it will be a popular handset.

Apparently this is going to be one of Samsungs hottest phones and most retailers are predicting it could be the top selling Samsung for the next 6 months. Certainly if the success of the Tocco is any thing to go by they won’t be far wrong.

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Nokia E63 is the next big business handset

by Patrick Altoft on November 13, 2008

Gadget Venue has a post up today about the Nokia E63 which was unveiled by Nokia this week.

Nokia E63

The exact release date has yet to be confirmed but the specs of the phone reveal a real competitor to the E71 Business Phone.

The E63 should operate in exactly the same way as the E71 as it runs Symbian 9.2 S60 version 3.2 software too, however the new touch sensitive Navi-Wheel which encircles the traditional d-pad should make it even easier to flip between menus and screens.

 

Full Features:

Size 

  • Form: Monoblock with full keyboard
  • Dimensions: 113 x 59 x 13 mm
  • Weight: 126 g
  • Volume: 87 cc
  • Full keyboard
  • High quality QVGA display

 
Display and 3D 

  • Size: 2.36″
  • Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
  • Up to 16 million colors
  • TFT active matrix (QVGA)
  • Two customisable home screen modes

 
Security features

  • Device lock
  • Remote lock
  • Data encryption for both phone memory an microSD content
  • mobile VPN

 
Keys and input method

  • Full keyboard
  • Dedicated one-touch keys: Home, calendar, contacts, and email
  • Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialling
  • Intelligent input with auto-completion, auto-correction and learning capability
  • Accelerated scrolling with NaviTMKey

 
Colors and covers

  • Available in-box colors: Ultramarine Blue and Ruby Red

 
Connectors

  • Micro-USB connector, full-speed
  • 3.5 mm standard AV connector

 
Power 

  • BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Po standard battery
  • Talk time (maximum): GSM up to 11 hours; WCDMA up to 4h 40 min
  • Standby time (maximum): GSM up to 18 days; WCDMA up to 20 days;WLAN idle up to 170 hours
  • Music playback time (maximum): 18 h

Memory

  • microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 8 GB
  • 110 MB internal dynamic memory

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Nintendo Wii Fit most popular Christmas toy

by Patrick Altoft on November 13, 2008

Apparently the Nintendo Wii Fit could be the most popular toy this Christmas after topping the search volume charts for October.

Nintendo Wii Fit

The popularity of Nintendo’s Wii Fit, which accounted for one in six searches for a video game during October, has helped online searches for video games overtake those for consoles in the run-up to Christmas. Judging by the search data, it looks as if the current generation of consoles – the Wii, Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 – have started to mature.

The chart below illustrates the volume of searches for three portfolios of search terms over the last three years. The first portfolio contains search terms related specifically to the consoles themselves, while the other two contain terms relating to actual video games and games console accessories. As you can see, last Christmas was the big year for actual console searches, but this year we haven’t seen a similar pre-Christmas uptick. However, searches for video games themselves have continued to increase, implying that this Christmas there will be more searches for console games than the actual consoles themselves.

Via

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Blackberry Storm - affiliates get £10 extra commission

by Patrick Altoft on November 10, 2008

Kieron is full of praise today for Dial-a-Phone offering an extra £10 commission on the Blackberry Storm.

Affiliates sending confirmed leads will get the extra £10 on top of their normal commission level and there is a selection of creatives to use.

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