July 2007 - Posts
Haier |
This gives you an idea of just how small Haier's Elegance phone reall is.
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Good phones come in small packages. And that’s doubly true with two new, diminutive little cell phones. The Haier
Elegance (otherwise known as the Black Pearl) is a lipstick case-sized GSM mobile phone that measures only 3.5 inches long, 1.4 inches wide and a mere 0.6 inches deep.
The mini battery pack inside is said to last up to 3 hours of talk time and 200 hours of standby.
There are actually two Elegance models: One is a tri-band (800, 1800, 1900 MHz) world phone and the other a dual-band (850, 1900 MHz) handset for the U.S. market.
There’s no digital camera in this phone but you‘ll probably never miss it. That’s because there’s a terrific OLED color screen with animated, 3D graphics, stereo Bluetooth capabilities, a FM radio, a voice recorder, a MP3 player along with a micro-SD card slot to store your music, some games, an alarm clock, calculator, calendar, text messaging and a mini-USB 2.0 port on the bottom for connectivity and charging.
It’s hard to believe there’s room for a great phone in there.
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PNY |
This is a very large USB drive.
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It really wasn’t all that long ago that I bought a Macintosh SE/30 computer.It came with 1MB of memory as standard equipment but was able to handle a grand total of 16MB of RAM.
That was an absolutely astounding amount of memory for that time. In 1989, most computers were dealing with kilobytes (1 thousand bytes) of memory -- not the megabytes (1 million bytes) or gigabytes (1 billion bytes) we take for granted today.
That’s why I was so astounded recently when I was looking for a portable USB 2.0 flash memory drive to hold a very large amount of data I needed to make portable.
When I saw the offerings on the PNY Website I couldn’t believe my eyes.
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Borealis |
LED bulbs come in popular sizes including MR16.
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Last month, the U.S. Senate passed a bill which could bring the end to Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb.
The new legislation, in addition to increasing automobile fuel economy, new laws against energy price-gouging, a big increase in ethanol production, also deals with saving electricity at home.
The bill would create new efficiency standards for appliance and lighting -- including changing old-fashioned lighting fixtures in U.S. government buildings, new standards for incandescent lighting fixtures and also calls for federally-funded Bright Tomorrow Lighting prizes for ideas on how to replace standard 60-watt bulbs with new, solid-state devices.
Through grueling experimentation, Edison produced a light bulb in 1879, which could burn for hours. Except for a few slight improvements, we’ve been hooked on Edison’s design for more than 100 years.
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Apple |
If you haven’t read or heard about Apple’s new iPhone you must be living under a rock.
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Not all high-end smartphones are alike, but they do have one feature in common – they’re expensive.
The iPhone sells for $500-600. I’ve seen unlocked LG Prada KE850 phones available in the $570 (and higher) range and Nokia’s N95 retails for a lofty $749 when they can keep them in stock.
We’ve set out to determine which of these new super smartphones is the heavyweight champ.
Is it the new iPhone – LG’s Prada phone - or the Nokia N95?
Apple’s iPod-cell phone
First, the iPhone. Arguably, it is the new standard by which all other smartphones will be judged. If you haven’t read or heard about Apple’s new handset you must be living under a rock. You can read
my full review here The iPhone’s user interface is the best on any cell phone anywhere. Every person who has tried my phone has been able to master navigating through the iPhone’s features within a minute or two.
T-Mobile |
If you're not sure what a home Wi-Fi router and cellphone have in common -- read on.
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Readers often write me to ask what can be done about not being able to use their cell phones inside their homes. Many people can’t find a usable cellular signal indoors.
Until now, the best advice I could give them was to stand near a window or walk outdoors to find an adequate cellular signal. Notice I said until now.
That’s because T-Mobile has come up with a clever way to have near-perfect cell phone coverage in your home. Think of it as having a cell phone tower in your home.
T-Mobile has rolled out a new service called Hotspot at Home. Using special handsets, the new service routes your cellular calls over your home Wi-Fi wireless, wideband Internet network.
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Apple |
Five iPhones will set you back at least $2,500.
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So you don’t have to peek at the end of this review I’m going to tell you what I really think: iPhone is fabulous. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but its interface – the way you control the device – is truly revolutionary.
The iPhone is thin – but not small. It measures 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches and it weighs 4.8 ounces. In your hand, it feels a little heavier than it looks – and it looks like someone took an old-fashioned smartphone and flattened it out under a steamroller.
iPhones have a very cool little mechanical device inside called an accelerometer. It senses when you tilt your iPhone sideways – and then automatically changes the picture on the screen from vertical to horizontal. When you’re looking at a Website, photo or video you can turn iPhone sideways and see a much larger picture. The iPhone is not the only smartphone to have this feature: Sidekick’s screen does a 180-degree turn when you open its keyboard.
Inside there’s a four-band GSM world phone, EDGE data capabilities, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth – pretty standard fare for a modern-day smartphone. It sports a very large 3.5-inch diagonal screen.
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