EW-700 WiFiFone Announced By Samsung

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 AnnouncedCurrently causing something of a stir on the floor of the Korea Electronics Show is the WiFiFone EW-700, a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP smartphone running Windows Mobile.

The all-black phone is a collaboration between Samsung and Korean, big-name cordless phone maker Eidicom, and sports a slightly unusual keypad layout, with navigation controls sat in the left hand corner of the handset and the phone keys shunted to the right.

This leaves the ‘call’ and ‘answer’ buttons in the bottom left hand corner of the handset which seems far from ideal to us.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 AnnouncedThe EW-700, looks a fairly plain, clunky beast too – in fact the photos we’ve seen have something of a pre-production air to them – but it’s not short of features.

The phone offers Samsung’s latest “Post-PC mobile multimedia processor”, an “embedded OS/Device driver,” web browser, Instant Messaging and an MP3 and video player keeping customers entertained. We figure there must be some kind of memory card expansion available, but seeing as all the pics released so far only show the front of the camera, we can’t be sure.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 AnnouncedWe’re yet to get full specs either, but the screen looks like a 320 x 240 pixels jobbie to us, and there’s also a 2-megapixel camera with camcorder function onboard, a voice recorder, hardware MPEG engine offering full frame video and Wi-Fi and infrared connectivity.

As for pricing and availability, we haven’t the foggiest right now.

[From Aving USA]

Google Maps For Palm Treo Review (95%)

Google Maps For Palm Treo ReviewAlthough it was announced as part of the forthcoming Palm Treo 680 smartphone package, Google has already made its Google Maps application available for free download.

Described by Google as being, “months in the making,” the company describes the 425k download as “the fastest, slickest version yet” of their mobile-optimised Google Maps application, offering real-time traffic reports, detailed directions, integrated search results (search for cafes/bars etc and get addresses and the option to call them with one click), fast downloading detailed, draggable maps and even satellite imagery.

Installation
Installing the Google Maps was easy enough, we just pointed our Treo browser to google.com/gmm and downloaded the program over the air. Users can also download the program from to their PC from http://www.google.com/gmm/treo and then hotsync the file over to their handheld in the usual way.

We ran Google Maps from our SD card with no problems.

Looking up locations
Loading up the program, we were prompted to type in an address (or ZIP code, postal address, latitude and longitude, intersection etc) and we were astonished by the speed that the map appeared on screen – even though we were connecting via GPRS. This baby is fast!

The maps download as small, separate tiles, so only new segments need to be downloaded as you were scroll across pages using the Treo’s five-way controller, or by dragging the map across the screen.

Overlaid, opaque zoom in/out buttons let you decide the level of detail, and a ‘find nearby business’ menu gives you the option to search for local hotels, cafes, bars etc with the results appearing onscreen as numbered markers.

Google Maps For Palm Treo ReviewClicking on an icon provides more address information and a button to phone them up, as well the ability to get turn by turn driving directions to and from any given point.

Best of all, downloaded maps are stored locally, so you can look up the area you’re visiting and have the map ready for viewing – even if you can’t connect to the web.

A minor niggle is that there’s no option to store downloaded data on to the Treo’s memory card, so stored maps burn up precious internal memory, but you can at least chose to delete all data on program exit.

Traffic updates
With Google Maps you can call up comprehensive information on traffic conditions in more than 30 U.S. major metropolitan areas (with partial information available for other states) with the driving directions offering traffic estimates to avoid congestion.

Highway traffic speeds are represented by different colour overlays (green for traffic flowing at over 50mph, Yellow for 26-50mph etc), and you can download satellite maps for onscreen maps.

You can search and view UK locations, but there’s currently no local business or traffic information available, although Google says it’s working to increase availability.

Conclusion
Google Maps is a truly remarkable product that adds near GPS-like functionality to the entire range of modern Palm OS Treos (700p, 680, 650 and even the venerable Treo 600 smartphone) – and all for nothing!

Of course, it won’t be able to tell you where you are, but so long as you can find a street sign, you’ll be able to nail your location, download local maps, locate and call up nearby shops, businesses and bars and even get traffic updates and satellite images.

It’s easily one of the best products we’ve ever reviewed for a Palm phone – any smartphone, in fact – and it’s a ‘must have’ application for map fans, travellers, amblers and business users alike. And it’s free, Goddammit!

Features: 90%
Ease of use: 90%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 95%

Airis Releases Bargain Basement PDAs With GPS

Airis Releases Bargain Basement PDAs With GPSAlthough PDAs may be a dying breed, they clearly ain’t dead yet, with the lesser known Spanish electrics company releasing no less than two spanking new GPS-enabled PDAs.

Running on Windows Mobile 2005, it has to be said that the Airis units aren’t exactly lookers, but at a retail price of €220 (£148) and €289 (£195) respectively, they look like chuffing great value.

The new T610 and T620 models both include the well respected SiRFStar III GPS chipset.

Lurking inside is a nippy Samsung 2440 400MHz processor, backed up by a healthy 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM.

The T610 and T620 are cosmetically identical, with both being enclosed in a bland, grey plastic case offering the usual four navigation buttons supplemented by a mini joystick.

Both PDAs come with a 3.5 inch TFT 320 x 240 pixels/65k colours touch screen with anti-reflective coating, with the units offering WAV, WMA, MP3, WMV, MPEG4, DivX4 and DivX5 support.

Airis Releases Bargain Basement PDAs With GPSA SD/MMC card slot takes care of expansion options, with connectivity coming in the form of a MiniUSB socket , Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g (T620 only)

A Lithium-Ion 200 mAh battery should keep the thing purring along for hours, with the T610/T620 weighing in at 170g and measuring 15.6 x 72 x 17.8 mm.

A mounting kit, car charger, and a smart leather case round off the feature set, with the units being available from this French site.

We couldn’t find any UK distributors.

[From Navigadget]

Scrabble for Palm/Pocket PC by Handmark: Review (90%)

Scrabble for Palm/Pocket PC by HandmarkCurrently sending our productivity levels downwards at a worrying rate is the hideously addictive Scrabble for the Palm OS by Handmark.

Looking – and playing – just like the classic board game, the program offers the familiar Scrabble board layout, with drag and drop tiles which are stored at the bottom of the screen.

Just like in the real world, you can shuffle the order of these around so you can plan and prepare killer words, but -sadly – you won’t be able to ‘find’ blank squares under your foot.

The game offers two player modes: Friendly or Tournament.

Friendly mode is like playing against drunken mates where you can try and insist that ‘Zyptq’ is actually a real world, and force the program to accept words that aren’t in the included Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary.

There’s also a “Suggest Move” option for those times when you can’t think of any words bigger than, err…um….”to.”

In the Tournament mode you play by the standard Scrabble rules, with challenges being automatically checked by the built-in Dictionary.

Scrabble for Palm/Pocket PC by HandmarkThe game offers four levels of automated computer opponent: Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, or Expert.

We arrogantly waded in at Expert level, and after being totally humbled repeatedly by an onslaught of obscure words we still don’t believe exist, we slunk down to Novice level where we still only managed to win about half of the games at first.

If you get bored having your sorry ass whipped by the computer, you can also take on real life chums, either by passing the Palm PDA around (the game will hide your tile rack from opponents) or via IR beaming and Bluetooth.

Conclusion
Although this game has been around for a very long time on the Palm OS, it’s still a hugely playable classic and easily holds its own against modern games.

The interface is attractive, simple and easy to use, with the computer opponent tough enough to keep you coming back for endless humiliations.

Scrabble for Palm/Pocket PC by HandmarkEven in expert mode, the computer was able to come up with challenge-destroying words almost instantaneously, so the only thing slowing the game down was our own ineptitude.

Since we installed the game on our Palm Treo 650 (it works fine straight off the card, by the way), we’ve been more or less addicted to Scrabble, having quick games whenever we find ourselves in a Post Office queue, waiting for friends or, err, going to the smallest room.

The game is also available on the Pocket PC and although both versions are a tad pricey at $19.95, we reckon they’re worth every penny.

Features: 85%
Gameplay: 90%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 80%
Overall: 90%
Handmark Scrabble for Palm OS
Handmark Scrabble for PocketPC

i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone: Photos

i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone: PhotosCurrently blossoming on the Ugly Tree and ripe for plucking is the new i-mate JAQ PocketPC phone.

The press launch photos looked ugly enough, but it looks like it doesn’t get any prettier close up, as hands-on photos released on Mobility Today reveal.

Looking like a Treo built by Cybermen, the i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone is one of the first i-Mate devices to be developed from the company’s new partnership with Taiwanese firm, Inventec Mercury (previously, i-Mate phones have been made by HTC).

i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone: PhotosAs far as we know, i-Mate haven’t officially split from HTC, but the company seems to be following O2’s policy of sourcing Windows smartphones from other manufacturers as well as HTC – a decision perhaps prompted by HTC recently releasing phones under their own name.

Specification-wise, it’s a case of no alarms or surprises, with the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900, GPRS + EDGE) i-mate JAQ running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and featuring a full QWERTY keyboard with 128 MB ROM/64MB RAM and a MiniSD memory card slot.

i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone: PhotosQuite a hefty beast at 122x71x22mm and weighing 160 grams, the i-Mate JAQ comes with a 2.8″ 320×240 pixels, 65k colour display, Bluetooth and InfraRed, but there’s no WiFi or 3G in sight, neither is there an onboard camera, which strikes us as a serious omission.

With looks that even its own mother couldn’t love, and a no-fun, limited feature set, here’s one phone that we can’t get excited about.

Let’s hope future collaborations between i-Mate and Inventec bring more exciting results.

i-mate JAQ specs:
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Data: GPRS + EDGE
Screen: 320×240 pixels, 65k colours
Camera: No
Size: 122x71x22mm / 160 grams
Bluetooth: Yes
Memory card: microSD
Infra-red: Yes
Polyphonic: Yes
Java: Limited
Battery life: Not specified

FakeCall For Palm Treo 650

FakeCall For Palm Treo 650You must all be familiar with this dreadful situation when you’re stuck in a late Friday work meeting that never seems to end, while your mates are already in the pub.

The boss is showing no sign of finishing his motivational Power Point presentation (backed by the soft rock ‘team building’ sounds of Boston and Foreigner) and you’re desperately trying to think of a good enough reason to get you out of this hell hole.

If only the phone would ring with an urgent call!

Thanks to Fake Call, there’s now a handy and convincing way to escape perpetual presentations (and unwanted social interactions) by setting up simulated incoming phone calls.

Using the programs straightforward interface, you can set an appointment in the Treo’s Contacts to activate the fake call (or discretely press and hold a preconfigured key) and a call will materialise right on cue!

FakeCall For Palm Treo 650Ringtones can be set as required and when the phone rings, it’ll even display the name of the fake caller, so you can let your boss see how really urgent the call must be.

When you answer the call, one of four pre-defined “hello” greeting messages will blast out of your phone, or you can record your own one-sided ‘conversations’ in wav/mp3/ogg/wma file formats for added, boss-fooling authenticity

FakeCall requires 50k of memory and can be purchased from Toysoft Inc – it’s got to be worth the outlay for just $5.95 (£3.20, €4.70)!

Vodafone Treo 750v UK Release Date Nears

Vodafone Treo 750v UK Release Date NearsPalm have revealed details about their eagerly awaited Treo 750v, which will be made available on the Vodafone network in the UK.

The smartphone will come with quadband support for GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G/UMTS plus Bluetooth 1.2, but there’s no sign of HSDPA onboard.

(In case you’re not up to speed with the latest acronyms, HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access – also referred to as 3.5G – and provides higher data transfer speeds; up to 14.4 Mbit/s per cell downlink and 2 Mbit/s per cell uplink.)

This new release will be the first of the Treo smartphones to not have a thumping great trademark antennae sticking out of the top, with the body being noticeably slimmer too.

Vodafone Treo 750v UK Release Date NearsIn line with Palm’s weird aversion to all things Wi-Fi in their Treos, hotspot lovers will have to invest in a separate Wi-Fi SDIO card.

As with the previous 700p both enjoy 320 x 320 pixel displays).

Vodafone Treo 750v UK Release Date NearsMemory has been boosted to 128MB plus 60MB user flash memory, with the device sharing the same 1.3 megapixel digital camera and the excellent full QWERTY keyboard with 5-way navigator of its predecessors.

Users can pre-order the Treo 750v from Vodafone’s UK small business online shop (“From Free to £127.66”), with the full product launch scheduled for 27th September 2006.

Palm Treo 750w
Palm Treo 750w UK page
Vodafone Treo
HSDPA explained

TreoCiel Weather Forecast For Palm Treo Review (90%)

TréoCiel Weather Forecast For Palm Treo Review (90%)Like most Brits we’re more than a bit obsessed with all things weather-related, so as soon as we bought a Palm Treo we were busily installing a host of weather-related applications, including Treo Alarm.

We thought that combo had left us most with isobaric bases covered until we came across the uncrowned Big Daddy of weather apps, the superb Tréociel.

This puppy positively assails you with weather info, serving up max and min temperatures, precipitation probabilities, weather forecast icons and wind speed and direction.

Of course, all that data’s a fat load of good if you can’t make head or tail of it, but here’s where the Tréociel really excels, presenting weather forecasts in a series of clear, easy-to-read scrollable charts.

TréoCiel Weather Forecast For Palm Treo Review (90%)Setting it all up
Before you start, you need to input which cities you want to monitor, and this can be done by typing in the city name, weather station ID or search.

Once located, the program prompts you to decide whether you want to track hourly or daily weather data, with a click on the ‘update’ button downloading the latest information off the internet (unfortunately, there’s no auto-update facility yet).

Reading the charts
Downloaded ten-day weather information is shown on a horizontally scrolling graph which can be set up with customised views.

By default, Tréociel will show min/max temperature, weather icons, wind speed and precipitation information, with the option to define three custom views.

TréoCiel Weather Forecast For Palm Treo Review (90%)Wind speeds can be shown in km/h, mph, m/s, knots or in the trusty old Beaufort Scale, with the choice to select temperature readouts in Celsius or old school Fahrenheit.

Graphs can display hourly or daily forecasts, with the scrollable graph making it easy to track weather trends.

Conclusion
We loved Tréociel, with the program’s novel and easy to read interface tempting us into wasting endless time checking out the weather in different cities around the world, as well as looking up the local forecast.

The internet updates meant we knew when to pack an umbrella before leavng the office and if anyone made the mistake of striking up a conversation about the weather, we had Tréociel on hand to bore them utterly senseless.

TréoCiel Weather Forecast For Palm Treo Review (90%)At just €9.95 the program represents great value to our eyes and looks to be an essential purchase for travellers and meteorological mullers.

Currently optimised for the Palm Treo only, owners of non Palm smartphones should be able to join in the fun soon with the authors promising versions for “Windows Mobile and other platforms” in the future.

Features: 80%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 90%
Overall: 90%

TréoCiel

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)If you’re a modern, go-getting metrosexual-about-town like us Digi-Life hipsters, you’ll be the owner of a mile-long list of passwords, web logins, ATM PINs, program serials, bank account details, credit card numbers and passcodes for highly exclusive West End nightclubs.

Remembering all those numbers and passwords isn’t the easiest thing to do when you’re out and about, so it would be handy to be able to carry them all about on your smartphone, in a safe and secure way that will keep all your personal data safe if your phone gets purloined.

The best way to do this is to use a password-protected Password Manager that keeps all your personal info under lock and key, leaving you with just one password to remember.

Although there’s a ton of password managers available for smartphones/PDAs, we haven’t found any that do it as well as Splash ID – we’ve been using the program for several years and find it absolutely indispensable.

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)Using SplashID
Available for the Palm OS, Treo, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Symbian UIQ, Series 60 and BlackBerry, SplashID securely stores all of your sensitive personal information in a database protected by 256-bit Blowfish encryption.

Launching the program on your handheld brings up a password request, and once you’ve inputted the right digits, you can access all your data alphabetically, by category or by searching.

Using its clean and simple interface, user names, passwords, credit cards, PINs, and other such personal information can be inputted on your handheld, with the option to include categories, create custom fields and assign icons in a colour-coded customisable List View.

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)Naturally, with all your precious data a mere password away, it’s vital that you make your SplashID password a good ‘un – if that kind of thing defeats you, there’s a handy password generator onboard to help you create hard-to-crack passwords.

Desktop application
Best of all, Splash ID ships with a password protected desktop companion and conduit that lets you store, add and edit data information stored in the database.

It’s a neat, small application that replicates the functionality of the handheld application, accessible with the same password.

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)A nice touch is that you can click the clipboard icon next to listed passwords and have the code automatically placed in the clipboard ready for pasting into your browser or program password box.

Conclusion
Whenever we’ve upgraded our phone or PDA in the past, this is one of the very first programs we install – it’s that good.

SplashID Password Manager For Smartphones/PDAs (90%)Because of SplashID’s cross-platform abilities, we’ve been able to exchange data from Palm to Windows Mobile devices (and back again) without a problem so it’s pretty much future proofed, and the desktop integration is a great way of ensuring that the info is kept up to date.

The program is simple to use and offers a convenient, secure and versatile way of safely storing passwords on your mobile, and we reckon $30 (£16, €23) is a small price to pay for such peace of mind.

Features: 90%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 85%
Overall: 90%

SplashID

Mobile Devices To Dominate: EIEF06

Desktop computing will be dead by the end of the decade and laptops will be following shortly after. That was the view of Graham Brown-Martin of Handheld Learning in an entertaining presentation at day two of the EIEF.

Brown-Martin’s vision is that computing will migrate to a new breed of portable, hand held devices that make use of cheap, high-bandwidth Internet connections to access data stored remotely on Net-based servers.

The drivers behind this change include the impracticality of desktop-based computers for our changing lifestyles and the rise of home entertainment technology, which will include many of the functions now present in computers.

The coming of HDTV coupled with the rapid uptake of digital TV and the growth of alternative modes of accessing TV (there are on average, 4-5 screens capable of accessing TV in every UK home) mean that the uptake of high-bandwidth broadband services could be extremely quick bringing access to an userbase well beyond just computer users.

The other side of the proposition is high capacity storage. We all create gigabytes of digital stuff with our collections of MP3’s, pictures and games but not everyone is at the cutting edge of data backups and archiving. Enter online data warehousing services such as streamload.com, who are providing gigabytes of cheap (and in some cases free) online storage where you can dump your data and access it from any Internet device.

Brown-Martin’s position is that we are no longer 20th century factory workers. We are mobile. All our stuff can be accessed in one location in cyberspace, assuming the media is scalable and interoperable. This model is the backbone of successful Web 2.0 companies such as Mp3 tunes, Skype, MySpace and YouTube.

As an illustration of this, and of his extremely cool mobile phone, Brown-Martin demonstrated a home made remix of the Snakes on a Plane teaser, edited with a mobile and a Macbook. The result was uploaded directly to YouTube from the phone then downloaded again (wirelessly) using a Nokia Internet tablet.

Readers of Digital-Lifestyles are no strangers to this kind of digital dabbling but there are issues to be overcome. As Brown-Martin conceded, there are privacy issues, what happens when the government comes along and demands to access all Streamload’s stored data?

Fast connections are only half the communications issue. For these to be effective enough to allow true access from anywhere, they have to be ubiquitous. We already have a plethora of mobile devices but most of our fast connections are fixed. Meaning that we are all still fighting over desk space, wall sockets and power points (as the general lack of power sockets at the EIEF venue amply illustrated). True mobile computing will require blanket wireless access in major towns and cities and on public transport, services that are still in their infancy just now.

On a more mundane level, what happens if we decide to shift our data from one provider to another, the digital equivalent of moving house? Even with a fast connection, downloading gigabytes of data and uploading to another provider is just too painful a process to contemplate.

Brown-Martin proposed that there must be some way to allow linking from one online provider to another so that we can allow access to our own content repositories without having to physically copy data. This kind of slick, server-based functionality is the kind of service that will be the killer app for Brown-Martin’s vision of mobile computing. With that, all your data shelved in secured and permanently accessible online storage and a permanent high-speed broadband link you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with all that grey box malarkey!

Handheld Learning