Mobile Phone Blog:

A bit back, I did a review of Opera Mini 5, and you may remember that I loved it to bits. I loved it so much that I started using it as my main web browser, replacing Opera Mobile 9.5 (which was the standard one the X1 came with), because it was faster, ever so slightly sleeker, and did pretty much everything Opera Mobile would do. I also promised you that I’d be getting the beta version of Opera Mobile 9.7, to compare that to Opera Mini 5, and now, here’s the follow-up to that original review.

I now have Opera Mobile 9.7. Let’s see how the two browsers stack up against each other.

The big, huge, massive advantage that Opera Mini had over Opera Mobile 9.5 was speed. Quite simply, Mini was much, much faster than Mobile, down to the fact that web pages were rendered on Opera’s servers, and then the resulting page was pumped to your phone. That did make it a lot faster, as all the heavy work of rendering the page wasn’t being done on your mobile device.

However, Opera Mobile 9.7 comes with a new feature called Turbo, which does the exact same trick, server-side rendering. And that means, folks, that Opera Mobile 9.7 is now once again as fast as Opera Mini. Surprisingly, I even found that with Turbo turned off, Opera Mobile wasn’t far off the speed of Opera Mini, anyway, so I reckon some serious optimisation’s gone on under the hood.

Opera Mini 5 also brought kinetic, finger scrolling to the java-based browser for the first time ever, bringing it up to date with its larger, Mobile cousin. In fact, the scrolling was smoother on Mini 5 than it was on Mobile 9.5. So the big question here is whether Opera Mobile 9.7 has done anything to improve its kinetic scrolling; the answer is, of course, yes it damn well has. The scroll is now a lot smoother, and a lot faster, and the user experience as a whole has been optimised even more, putting it ahead of its little brother once again.

I did experience some issues with the UI, such as the fact that pages wouldn’t open in new tabs if you have Turbo turned on, but since it’s a beta release, that’s to be expected. And anyway, as I say, it’s nearly as fast with Turbo turned off. Granted, it lacks the built-in keyboard that Opera Mini now has, but since I have both a hardware keyboard and SPB Keyboard installed (and expect a blog post about that app soon, too), that ain’t a problem.

So, conclusion…

If you have a touchscreen phone which isn’t Windows Mobile, or you have an older, not-as-powerful WinMo phone, then Opera Mini 5 is the best browser you can get, bar none. If you have, however, a more recent, more powerful Windows Mobile phone (like an HTC Touch Diamond2 or a Toshiba TG01), then get Opera Mobile 9.7. It’s awesome.

The final word in this blog post, however, is one about Opera Mini 5, and is aimed specifically at people who are thinking of using it on non-smartphones. It’s also something my sister found out, and it’s the reason why she’s gone back to using Opera Mini 4. The built-in Opera keyboard doesn’t, against all common sense, actually have an underscore key, and neither does the keypad on her phone, which makes it impossible for her to log in to Facebook using Opera Mini 5.

So, be aware, if you’re using Opera Mini, on a feature phone, then in your case, you may well be best sticking with the previous version…

Which do you use? Mini or Mobile? Leave us a comment and have your say!

After seeing the awesomeness that is the Toshiba TG01, it’s the unwise man who would bet against Toshiba making a whole bevy of incredibly sexy mobile phones. I mean, after all, the TG01 manages to squeeze so much power into such a slim body (believe me, I was scratching my head, trying to figure out how), so it’s clear they know a thing or two about gorgeous design.

Well, according to Engadget Mobile, the prototypes for their newest batch of phones has gone on display, and by crikey, are they pretty!

And I’m a little bit confused, because only two of the four mobile phones on display are named: the K01 and the K02 (yes I know the L02 is also named on there, but it appears to be a mobile internet device, not a phone, so I’m not counting it amongst the ‘four mobile phones’). This, of course, begs the question of what the other two phones are called. In the unnamed section, we’ve got a phone that’s (apart from the bit round the softkeys, and the metal stripe round the edges) the absolute spitting image of the TG01. Here, see for yourself. Tg02 or TG03, maybe?

There’s also a slidy phone, with a traditional alphanumeric keypad, and again, I really don’t know what model that is. At the moment, this phone (here, have a look at it) will have to remain an enigma (although, if anyone has been paying more attention than me, and knows what it’s model number is, let us know in the comments).

So, let’s move on to the two phones that are named, and I’m happy to say that they’ve both really, really caught my attention. First up, there’s the Toshiba K01; ie/ the one in the main pic on this blog post, with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. And here’s where things get interesting. Y’know how I’ve mentioned before that my options for what my next phone will be are now standing at three phones (those being the Sony Ericsson X2, the HTC HD2 and the Nokia N900)? Yeah, well, after seeing the Toshiba K01, that list now stands at four phones, and the K01′s just shot straight to the top of that list.

There’s a reason for that, y’see, because after doing a bit of hunting for the specs, it turns out the Toshiba K01 has not only got a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, but it’s got a huge 4.1 inch touchscreen. Oh, and that touchscreen is a capacitive one, like you get on the HTC HD2, which only adds to the awesomeness quotient, as does the fact that I’d bet millions of pounds on it having a Snapdragon processor in it. But the most impressive stat is how thick the phone is, or, should I say, how thick it isn’t, as it only measures in at 15mm in depth, despite it having a full keyboard. To put that into some perspective, that’s only 3mm chunkier than the current iPhone (and 5mm thicker than the Toshiba TG01) and 2mm thinner than my current Xperia X1.

I’ll say it again, how in the name of jeebus do Toshiba make phones that thin, with so much tech in them??

Ok, it’s only got a 3MP camera, but I’ve come to realise I’m not that bothered about the camera. Not when there’s that much power on display. And I don’t even care that the screen won’t tilt, like it does on my X1. I wants it.

And then, there’s the Toshiba K02. With this one, I’m having a bit of trouble reconciling what the supposed specs are with the photos we’ve now seen of the prototype. Y’see, the specs say it has a 3.5 inch screen, and it opens to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, inside, in a kind of faux-laptop manner. But they also say it’s got a second screen on the outside, with a numeric keypad.

Well, take a look at the pics of it. That looks, very much, like a flip open phone that’s got a second screen, where the keyboard would be, kinda like a Nintendo DS. And neither of the two halves of the phone appear to swivel, which implies that if it does have an external screen, then what we’re looking at is a phone with THREE screens.

Er, blimey. I reckon the jury might still be very firmly out on whether I’m right in that assumption, or not. I guess that time will tell, but for now, have a look at all four of the new phones (including the two mystery phones) in the flesh.

Yep, I definitely want that Toshiba K01…

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Right, here we go, after weeks of rumours, it’s finally happened. The HTC HD2 has finally gone official. And it is epic. Like, proper epic. We’re talking magnificent, here.

Ok, rather than just spouting vaguely awesome platitudes, maybe I should break down why it’s so epic, for anyone who’s not seen the rumours so far.

Well, first up, there’s the obvious thing: the screen. It’s vast. Basically, you’re looking at a 4.3 inch screen, which makes it easily the biggest screen on any mobile phone in the world. That in itself is awesome, but the HTC HD2 doesn’t stop there. Y’see, as well as being huge, it’s also a capacitive screen, designed to be used exclusively with fingertips. However, the fact it’s capacitive also means it supports multitouch, just like the iPhone or the Palm Pre, so you can do things like using two fingers on screen to zoom in and out of photos.

That should be fun to have a play with!

Just giving the HTC HD2 a huge, multitouch screen would’ve been enough to give it the title of coolest Windows Mobile phone ever, but HTC didn’t stop there. No, they’ve also given the phone a ludicrously fast, 1GHz ‘Snapdragon’ processor. Y’know, the one that makes the Toshiba TG01 such a good phone. So, not only is this the coolest WinMo phone ever made, it’s also the most powerful…

Oh, but, again, HTC haven’t stopped there. They’ve also updated the interface, so much so, that they’re no longer calling it TouchFLO. They’re calling it Sense, to reflect the changes that’ve been made to it, changes inspired by the Sense UI seen in the HTC Hero. So, whilst it looks like TouchFLO on the surface, they’ve made a lot of key changes, like making the front screen more widget-based, so you can put shortcuts directly on the front screen (a good thing, because having to scroll all the way to the right to access your apps was my biggest complaint about TouchFLO).

You also get a 5MP camera (with flash), and a bucketload of accelerometers, to rotate the screen and so on. In fact, the accelerometer also provides another nice little gimmick, in that when the phone rings, it knows when you pick it up (meaning that you’ve heard the ringtone), so it knows it doesn’t need to blare the ringtone out at full volume any more, meaning you won’t annoy everyone else around you.

Clever stuff. Oh, and it’s pretty. Here, feast your eyes:

In conclusion, there’s not much else I can say about this phone. I’m thoroughly gobsmacked by how awesome it is. But I think I can sum it up in 11 words:

The HTC HD2 is the best phone HTC have EVER made…

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As things stand right now, in the mobile world, the crown for the most powerful processor around goes to the Snapdragon chip, made by Qualcomm. You know the one. It’s that 1GHz monster used in the Toshiba TG01, and the upcoming HTC Leo/Touch HD2/whatever it ends up being called. It’s really rather powerful.

However, it looks like it ain’t gonna be staying at the top of the heap for much longer, because according to BGR, Samsung have announced a whole bevy of chips that, when combined, have the potential to give the Snapdragon an utter kicking.

First up are a pair of 1GHz processors, which both have 512kb L2 cache, and which both draw significantly less power than other mobile CPUs on the market, which’ll make for phones with loads more power, but which don’t sacrifice battery life to get it. Oh, and of course, they also have full 3D support, and genuine HD output, at 1080p resolution. Couple that with their new super-fast OneDRAM memory, and you’ve got the basis of a bleedin’ powerful mobile phone.

They haven’t just been working on the never-to-be-seen bits that go inside the phone, though, as they’ve also unveiled some new stuff to do with the screen and the camera. For the screen, they’ve made it a lot easier for phones to use capacitive screens, by building all the controls a capacitive screen needs into the display driver chip itself, thus streamlining the hardware even more.

And finally, there’s the camera, and here, Samsung have gone all out to make a SoC. Or, to give it its full name, a System-on-Chip. So, they put a 5MP camera, and an image processing thingamiewotsit onto one chip which, incidentally, will also record full 1080p HD video, at 30 frames per second. And that’s all on one teeny little chipset, mind you, without needing separate components, or a million lines of software code to run it.

That’s rather impressive. But what does it all add up to?

Well, I’m thinking this: imagine a Samsung i8910 HD, but that will have the raw power of the TG01, and will record 1080p HD video, and will do lush 3D graphics easily, AND may actually be powerful enough to break reality…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

Over the last couple of days, you may have noticed that I’ve been going all swoony over the upcoming HTC Leo. You know, the phone that’s set out to firmly steal the crown off the Toshiba TG01, as the most powerful mobile phone (with the biggest screen) in the world. Well, a new video’s popped up online, that shows off the HTC Leo, and in that video, something happened that I wasn’t prepared for.

I’d heard all the rumours that the phone would have a capacitive screen, and the new vid that’s appeared doesn’t just confirm that it does have one. No, it confirms it by showing off that the HTC Leo, in fact, supports multitouch…

So, the HTC Leo is going to be even better than I thought it would be; in fact, it will be the first phone running on Windows Mobile that’s ever supported multitouch, so in one fell swoop, it’s nicked the crown off the Toshiba TG01. Sorry, Tosh. Oh, and the other thing about the video: look how smooth the phone runs. There’s not a bit of jitter when he’s swiping through photos, or zooming in on the video he sets playing within the phone. That, right there, is why Snapdragon processors rule.

All in all, then, the HTC Leo, or whatever it ends up getting called when it’s finally released (the name Pro.Three‘s been bandied about), is going to be mind-blowingly good. I feel confident in saying that, even before the phone gets released.

It will, I have no doubt whatsoever, rock…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

For a while, now, the Toshiba TG01 has been the most powerful phone in the UK, and is if that wasn’t enough, it’s also had the biggest screen of any phone in the UK. However, it won’t be sitting at the top of the pile for that much longer, because there’s an upcoming phone that’s going to usurp it.

It’s the HTC Leo, and now, according to IntoMobile, we’ve finally seen what it looks like in the flesh.

And it is gargantuan…

There are, specifically, two bits where it goes beyond ‘massiveness’, casts ‘hugeness’ aside, and hurtles headlong into ‘Galactus-sized’. The first is the processor, as it runs on the same Snapdragon chip you get in the Toshiba TG01, making it uber-fast. Secondly, there’s the screen, which neatly stuffs every other phone in the UK, coming in at 4.3 inches.

Put it this way: that phone in the pic with it is a HTC Touch Pro2, which can in no way be said to have a small screen (coming in, as it does, at 3.6 inches); the HTC Leo absolutely dwarfs it.

It gets better, though, because the HTC Leo’s also running WinMo 6.5, a 5MP camera (with, in a move that’s got me saying “about time”, a camera light), HSDPA and GPS. So, in other words, it’s going to be epically awesome…

Mark my words…

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Yep, this here be big news, alright, so big that everyone, including our own news section, has already covered it, but hey, that’s never stopped me from doing a blog post before. But anyway, yes, as you may have read elsewhere, the big news today (and yes, it is a doozy) is that Orange and T-Mobile are going to be joining forces, merging to create one supermassive ubernetwork.

In other words, Orange and T-Mobile will eventually no longer exist as we know them today, as separate networks, but as one, single entity.

It goes without saying there’s a lot of crucial and important questions running through people’s minds as they hear that news. You know, vital things like ‘what will the new network be called’, ‘will they still have mad animal-themed tariffs’, ‘will their logo be a kind of salmony-pink-tangeriney-orange colour’ and other such crucial things. And then people will complain, ‘cos that’s what people do.

After a moment’s thought, though, I can see some rather nice benefits for both sets of users, the biggest being increased coverage. With the network infrastructure from both being rolled into one network, that theoretically means both sets of customers will get a massively increased number of areas where they’ll get coverage.

Say you’ve got two separate areas on the map, and in one area, you can only get a signal on Orange, while in the other, you can only use T-Mobile. After the merger, both networks will work equally well in both areas.

This is what we call a good thing.

Also, think of some of the exclusive phones each individual network’s got. Orange have got the Toshiba TG01, and T-Mobile had the G2 Touch (alright, not the best example, since it’s a rebadged HTC Hero… but they also had the T-Mobile G1, and that was an honest to god exclusive). Potentially, then, both sets of network users will get access to more exclusive phones in future.

So, yes, it’s still got to be approved by various oversight groups (not least the Monopolies and Mergers Commission), and then we’ll have to see how well the two networks gel together, bearing in mind one is French, and one is German. And I love both nations, so there. So, on the one hand, you’ve got the French, who have an innate grasp of pleasure and sensuality, and whose idea of a good breakfast is chocolate bread. And on the other, there’s Germany, who are very precise and accurate, and have a frankly awesome heavy metal scene.

When the two combine in harmony, you get something awesome like the Bugatti Veyron. Am I excited? In a word, yes. In several other words, it seems the future is bright, and the future’s a sort of salmony-pink-tangeriney-orange colour…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

Ooh, I do like it when I get a chance to talk about a technology that’s genuinely completely new to the world of mobile phones, especially since nowadays, my jaded old mind keeps going “but everything’s got WiFi and GPS now, arrrrgh” every time I see a new phone. Oh, and also, I like it when I correctly call something that later turns out to be correct. I did a blog post ages ago, about the Sony Ericsson Kiki concept phone, and in it, I spotted an Xperia badge on the phone. That led to a few minutes of surprise, as I realised it was an Xperia phone.

And apparently, I was right, because it’s now been officially teased (that word has so many wrong connotations to it) by Sony Ericsson, according to GSMArena.

It’s no longer the Kiki. Say hello to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pureness (yes, ok, I concede that name is a bit long-winded, and a bit hippy-ish).

Now, if you haven’t read my original posts on the Kiki concept, you’re doubtless wondering why I’m getting so excited about it. It doesn’t look as though it’s got a camera, the design ethos behind it (“talk, text, time”) apparently precludes it having a load of features, and in general, it doesn’t do an awful lot besides being a bog-standard phone.

And none of that matters, because the Xperia Pureness is truly unique, because it doesn’t actually, in any traditional sense, have a screen. What it’s got is a window, with the top half of the phone basically being see-through. The screen graphics are basically projected on that, so that what you’re looking at ‘on screen’ sort of looks to float on top of the real world, that you see through the window.

That is 100% bona-fy-diddly unique. And of course, the Xperia brand is all about new experiences, rather than just being about top-end smartphones, so the Xperia Pureness fits that ethos perfectly. Ooh, and there’s a gallery of live pictures online, too. I’ve mirrored them here, so you can have a look:

Nice, eh?

It’s not just smartphones I love, I admire phones that are different, or have something that grabs hold of my attention and goes “you love me”, hence why I like the massive screen on the Toshiba TG01, and the indestructibleness of the JCB Tough Phone.

The first phone in history to have a window where the screen should be, and have the graphics projected from inside the phone somehow? Bound to love it.

How much? Well, put it this way, when I get my Sony Ericsson X2 (which I will, count on it), I could very easily see myself having an Xperia Pureness as my second phone…

More news as it happens! And be sure to subscribe now to get all the latest action from the world of mobile phones!

A interesting story’s popped up on the pages The Register, today, about a recent survey run by Opinium Research. According to the survey, one in four people have, and use, multiple mobile phones. This is not a big surprise, since I’ve got four of the little bleeders, myself. The interesting bit is the reasons why people have more than one mobile phone.

Eight percent of those asked said they got more than one phone so they could get the package they wanted, while six percent said they did it to get the phone they wanted (presumably because it was a network-exclusive, and that was the only way to get one).

Finally, thirteen percent said that they got a second phone for privacy reasons, which is, let’s face it, a bit of an ambiguous category. So, let’s be charitable and assume that most of the people who answered that meant “I want a second phone for work, so my boss doesn’t bother me outside work”, rather than “I don’t want the missus to read what I’ve been texting, fnar, fnar”.

Of course, in my case, the reasons for having four mobile phones are a bit more prosaic. There’s my current phone, which as anyone who reads this blog will know, is a Sony Ericsson X1. There’s an old phone I just couldn’t bear to get rid of (an Ericsson T28), ‘cos it’s all old school and sweet and luvverly. And there’s the Motorola L7 that used to be my mum’s old phone, that I stuck my PAYG sim in, when I downgraded it from contract, and flogged the old handset to make some cash (to pay for my X1, naturally).

Oh, and there’s my work phone, a W950. Do I ever actually use or even turn on my work phone? No.

Can I even find my work phone? No.

Do I, in fact, just give my X1′s number out to business contacts, because I’m too lazy to find my W950 and actually carry two phones about? Yes.

Yes, prosaic reasons, and not a little stupid, as well. But hey, they’re not actively costing me any money, so what the hell! Plus, I’ve always got them as a backup for those horrible “oh bum, my phone’s exploded/got beer all over it/been eaten by a warthog” moments, right?

I do plan on getting a proper work phone in future, and my gut instinct is that I should get something like the Toshiba TG01, or at least, something else WinMo-powered.

And once I’ve got it, will I be useless enough to lose that one in my house, as well?

In all honesty, yes, I probably will…

Do you use more than one phone? Do you use it for work or the aforementioned fnar, fnar? Leave us a comment and have your say!

As you probably guessed from my posts on the subject, I’m pretty chuffin’ excited about the upcoming release of Windows Mobile 6.5. I like WinMo, but I can see how it is flawed in places, and WinMo 6.5 (or Windows Phone, as Microsoft want everyone to call it) fixes a lot of them.

However, according to PocketNow, a new build of Windows Mobile 6.5 has leaked, and it’s gone even more finger-friendly, with some new features designed to make a stylus pretty much completely redundant.

And since there’s nothing quite like seeing it in action, take a look at it captured on video:

Ooh, nicey! I’m liking the new bigger soft buttons at the bottom of the screen, and the new notification area at the top is pure win. The biggest bit of win in that video, though, is the zoom box, the kind of magnifying glass thing you can bring to zoom in on any text boxes etc, to make it easier to get the cursor in the right place.

Never mind on a Toshiba TG01 with a 4 inch screen, that’d make even little Windows phones finger-friendly!

Can you tell I’m a bit impressed…?

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