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Bend Mobile

It seems that the more technology advances the more the designers have to push the boat out to satisfy our appetite for weird and wonderful gadgets and gizmos. If we take mobiles as an example, we only have to look at what was available a few years back to see how far we’ve come. Remember the brick?

Now we have mobiles that are much more than a simple phone. Our mobiles double as digital cameras, we can transfer information from phone to phone using wireless, texting has become an art form with a whole new language of its own, and we can hold video conferencing calls, and that is just the beginning.

In recent years we’ve seen the SmartPhone come into being, we can browse the Internet, send emails, check flights, book holidays, and even pay our bills. Mobile phones come in all sorts of sizes and colours with various distinguishing features that separate them from the rest and of course we have our favourites. So what could possibly be next?

Here we have a concept mobile by designer Andy Kurovets and you’ll either love it or hate it. The Bend Mobile has what you would expect a standard phone to have like a screen, a keypad and a camera. This one, however, goes way out there when it comes to design.

There’s something I can’t quite get my head around and it’s just so happens to be the phone’s most distinguishing feature, and that is the curved shape, hence the name Bend Mobile.

BlackBerry phones

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BlackBerry phones are the best and most reliable in the smartphone market and you can find the best deals in the UK on these phones below.

The trademark Qwerty keypad and heavy focus on e-mail communication has allowed them to become a necessity in the business world. Once a tool only really used in a commercial setting, the expansion of the smartphone market has allowed them to break into the personal market. A new range of more ‘fun’ BlackBerry handsets have been launched in the last year, ensuring their place as a leader of smartphone technology.

Some of the top selling BlackBerry models are the Curve 8520 and the Bold 9700, both of which are some of the fastest and most user-friendly handsets to date. Mobiles.co.uk are offering some huge deals on BlackBerry’s at the moment, including a massive 11 months free on the Curve 8520 and up to 16 months half price on the Bold 9700. All of these packages come with unlimited text messages, 300 anytime, any network minutes and all for only £25 per month.

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G was a controversial launch due to the standard keypad, designed with the non-BlackBerry user in the mind, the Pearl 3G is light weight, compact and easy to use on the move. The SureType technology is a bonus for any social networkers, and the audio player can be synced with your iTunes library. Perfect if you use your phone on the go. Mobiles are offering the Pearl 3G on Orange for £20 per month with 100 minutes, unlimited texts, 500MB data allowance and a fantastic 12 months half price!

First Dual Sim Mobiles From Nokia at an average rate of 2,500 INR

Mobile users are growing by leaps and bounds all over the world especially in India. Now people have more than one SIM card and the dual SIM mobiles are proving to be very handy for people who have two different mobile SIM Cards. Many mobile companies have started to cash in on dual SIM mobile phones. Chinese companies were the first to tap this dual SIM market by providing cheap dual SIM touch screen mobile phones at a very affordable rate. Samsung and other companies have also introduced their version of the dual SIM technology in their mobiles. Nokia is now entering this bandwagon of dual SIM mobile phones now. Nokia will be introducing C1 and C2 models of its dual SIM mobile phones in India shortly.

The pricing is expected to be around 2,500 Rs as samsung Dual SIM mobiles cost around 3000+. It is yet unsure whether the mobiles will be manufactured in the Chennai plant.Nokia India’s V Ramnath, director, operator business quotes, “Globally, C1 and C2, dual SIM mobile from Nokia, are already available. In India we’ll launch our dual SIM device in this quarter,”. He also announced that Ovi store also will be launched very soon in India. If this happens Indians can download Applications and pay in INR. The Finnish Mobile Giant has a strong customer base in India and has a full pledged Plant running in Chennai.

New and useful gadgets in the market

The ultrathin Dell Inspiron M101z laptop weighs under four pounds.

By MOLOUK Y. BA-ISA, 1MOLOUK@GMAIL.COM

Published: Aug 11, 2010 17:45 Updated: Aug 11, 2010 17:45

• On-the-go affordable laptop • Browser and app store tie up • Bike, hike or run these trails • Ramadan content

On-the-go affordable laptop

Dell’s Inspiron M101z laptop is the latest in compact computing. It offers premium looks, a big display, a full-width keyboard, long battery life and a powerful processor in a laptop no bigger than many netbooks. At under four pounds, it fits easily into a handbag or backpack and can handle everyday computing tasks, plus stream music and play HD videos. The Inspiron M101z laptop is powered by an AMD Athlon II Neo Mobile processor and integrated ATi graphics. It offers an 11.6-inch TrueLife HD glossy WLED display (1366x768), up to 4GB of fast DDR3 memory and up to a 320GB SATA hard drive. The PC is equipped with a built-in 1.3 megapixel Webcam, SRS Premium Sound with two 1.5W speakers, three USB 2.0 connections — one with USB PowerShare, HDMI port, VGA port and 7-in-1 media card reader. Connectivity options include integrated 10/100 Ethernet and Wi-Fi (b/g/n) with Bluetooth 3.0 wireless standard, and optional built in mobile broadband. The Inspiron M101z comes with a standard 6-cell battery, or an optional 9-cell battery. The machine retails for a starting price of $450.

Sony Vaio VPCS12V9E/B review

Sony's latest ultra-portable laptop is packed full of features, but are these enough to justify its high cost?

Sony is well known for it stylish laptops aimed at home users and other consumers. The Japanese giant has long had a range of laptops aimed at business users though and the company's latest S-series Vaio, the VPCS12V9E/B, is its latest model. The simple, black appearance is plain yet stylish in an understated way and looks like a less colourful version of the Vaio Y series. The VPCS12V9E/B has a built-in DVD writer yet still manages to weigh just 2kg which is light enough to carry around all day.

Despite being quite light, the VPCS12V9E/B feels very rigid and sturdy. The only exception is the lid which flexes under pressure, but it doesn't feel nearly as cheap as other laptop lids we've seen. The underside didn't become uncomfortably warm either. The battery lasted six hours and 11 minutes in our light usage test, where it scrolls through a series of web pages continuously, which is long enough to last a transatlantic flight. This is impressive, but we've seen cheaper ultra-laptops aimed at consumers with even longer battery life. However, those models can't match the VPCS12V9E/B's processing performance.

The VPCS12V9E/B comes equipped with a powerful Core i5 processor and a whopping 6GB of RAM. It therefore excelled in all our applications benchmarks, scoring 94 overall, so it should be able to handle tough tasks for some time to come. The Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics chip has its own memory rather than sharing main RAM. It can be used to speed up applications designed to take advantage of it, such as Photoshop, but such programs are thin on the ground.

Fast performance in a laptop is of little use if the keyboard and touchpad aren't very comfortable to use. Luckily, we were impressed with the VPCS12V9E/B's large and responsive keyboard. It's very comfortable to type on. The backlit keys illuminate automatically in dark conditions, which typists of all skill levels will appreciate, although you can't manually adjust the brightness as you can on the Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The touchpad is large and accurate, with buttons that give just the right amount of feedback when pressed.

If you're concerned about security, then you'll appreciate the fingerprint reader. This can be used to lock your computer instead of a login password. Sony's included software can create encrypt files and these too can be locked and unlocked with a fingerprint instead of yet another password. There's an option in the BIOS to clear stored fingerprints. While this is a useful option if you injure your finger, it's also a potential security loophole. Fortunately, it can be closed easily enough by password protecting the BIOS.

A 3G modem is built-in, so you won't need to occupy one of the three USB2 ports or the ExpressCard/34 expansion slot with one. The ExpressCard slot is a potentially useful extra, but it's located very closely next to the DVD writer and two of the USB ports so a large ExpressCard could foul the USB ports and the DVD writer, or a chunky USB flash drive could foul the path of the DVD writer or ExpressCard slot. Oddly the DVD writer's eject button is located on the front edge of the laptop rather than on the drive tray as you'd normally expect. There's a connector on the underside for a port replicator, but this costs a rather steep £180.

Asus B series laptops boast Boston-Power's Sonata batteries

With spec parity a given for most notebooks these days, innovations in batteries are one of the few areas that brands can use to differentiate themselves from one another. Case in point: The latest laptops from Asus, which will feature Sonata batteries from Boston-Power.

The new B series portables will join select HP laptops in offering the Sonata batteries, whose claim to fame is their superior ability to retain more of the charging capacity over time than conventional laptop batteries — “triple the lifespan of typical notebook batteries,” according to Asus. So after three years, they should retain 80 percent of their capacity per charge. They’re also the only lithium ion batteries to earn a Nordic Ecolabel accreditation. Putting its money where its mouth is, Asus is offering a three-year warranty on the battery itself.

As for the rest of the B (for “business”) lineup’s specs, the four models will all run Intel Core processors, with the default CPU being the Core i5-520M. The B43J and B53J will also be available with a Core i7-620M processor. While the B53F comes with integrated Intel graphics, the other laptops feature an ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 graphics card; all sport LED-backlit displays. Less exciting are the mere 2GB of RAM included, as well as a smallish 320GB hard drive. Enterprise-friendly features include Intel’s vPro, anti-theft, and trusted platform module technologies.