MWC just started and Samsung already teased us with one of their newest Galaxy phones, the Samsung Galaxy Beam. It is called Galaxy Beam because of the ultra-bright 15 lumens projector. Yes, that’s right folks. We got a projector on an Android phone. I doubt that this phone will be a hit and the even though it has a large battery life the projector might drain the battery in hours. Still, the product is very interesting and as of this moment we don’t know if this Galaxy phone will arrive here in the Philippines
Samsung Galaxy Beam Specifications
64.2 x 124 x 12.5mm, 145.3 g HSDPA 4.0” 480×800 (WVGA) TFT 1.0GHz Dual-Core Processor 5 Megapixel rear camera w/ 720p recording 1.3 Megapixel front camera Bluetooth 3.0 Wifi b/g/n 8 GB Internal Memory 2000 mAh Battery Android 2.3 Gingerbread
Samsung Galaxy Beam Reviews and Hands-on
As of this posting there are no Reviews and Hands-on available
Do you think that the metro tiles is too lame on Windows 8? For those people who doesn’t want to have a metro style desktop may switch back to the classic Windows but the classic windows is sooooooo 2009 and people just want something new. At the Verge forumsa guy name Sputnik8 just came up with a Windows 8 concept for desktop that will blow your mind (see picture above). I find the UI similar to ubuntu but who cares? this one is better than what Microsoft did!. More pictures after the break
MWC 2012 is coming and LG already surprised us before it started by announcing the one of the first quad core phones in the world, the LG Optimus 4X HD. Obviously, this will be the successor of the LG Optimus 2X. An Android dual core sporting smartphone. LG Optimus 4X HD features a quad core Tegra 3 (they called it as the first 4-PLUS-1™ Quad-Core mobile processor), 4.7″ HD Screen, 8 megapixel camera with BSI and 16 GB internal memory. More details is expected to be announced during MWC 2012 at Barcelona.
Before the Nokia Lumia 800 was announced there was the buttonless Meego-powered Nokia N9. If you don’t remember what the Nokia Lumia 800 looks like then you might want to check out our review of the Lumia. The look and the feel is almost the same with the Lumia. But the Lumia used a 1.4 GHz processor compared to the 1 GHz processor which makes the Lumia faster and smoother than its meego cousin. The Nokia N9 also supports NFC which isn’t getting that much popularity in our country. Some people barely see the difference between the Lumia and the N9 and most of them but this review mig
Hardware and construction
The Nokia N9 is pretty much the same with the Lumia in terms of its construction. We still see and feel the polycarbonate body which is very prone to disfiguration when you bump the phonehard. So Nokia include a jacket inside the box but unfortunately the review unit that we got doesn’t have one. Just like the Lumia 800, this one uses a AMOLED Clearblack display which has a great viewing angles and the blacks are really black. One of the best screens I’ve seen if you ask me. Anyway, this baby has a 3.9″ screen compared to the 3.7″ screen of the Nokia Lumia. There are no buttons on the rear that’s why the screen is larger. At the button of the screen is a front facing camera for video calling. It is kinda odd to put the front facing camera below the screen. Sometimes, your hand might block the camera. Anyway another thing that is missing in the Nokia N9 is the camera button on the side.
At the back is the same polycarbonate body with the 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera at the back along with the Nokia Logo. The performance of the camera was quite better than the Nokia Lumia 800. No camera buttons though. At the top you’ll still get the the micro usb with the cover that you need to push in order to see the port and of course, there is the micro-sim and again just like the lumia, you’ll need to slide the micro-sim port in order to see it. Oh and there’s the 3.5mm jack on the top too. The rest is just like the Nokia Lumia 800.
Nokia N9’s Speaker grill at the bottom
There’s the 3.5mm jack!
With regular use, the phone lasts up to 1-3 days. That’s quite good if you ask me. Too bad, you can’t remove the phone’s battery. If you want some extra juice in there then I suggest that you buy powertubes and portable chargers. There’s NFC inside too but we haven’t tested it since it isn’t widely use here. The loudspeaker was almost the same with the Nokia Lumia 800 but I felt that this one is much more clearer and louder than the Lumia.
The 1 GHz single core processor? I got no problems with that. The device is fast and the transitions are smooth. The phone is responsive on the 3.9″ Clearblack AMOLED display which is protected by a curve gorilla glass display. Typing on the curve display isn’t so bad. And just like what I’ve said before, the curve gorilla glass made the phone more sexier
Camera
The 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera might be one of the best selling point of this device. And just as we expect on a high-end device from Nokia, it didn’t fail us. The camera app on the Nokia N9 is much better than the Lumia. The autofocus was excellent even on video recording. Oh and this one has touch focus too while its cousin, the Nokia Lumia 800 missed on that one. Here are some shots taken using the Nokia N9:
Night Shot P. Noval Gate at UST
Santissimo Rosario Parish
Roque Ruano Building
Tiger’s Lair!
Macro Shot of the MiPow Powertube
Here’s a HD video sample of the Nokia N9:
Be sure to choose 720p to check out the HD recording quality of the device.
The Meego Experience
Meego might be a stranger to some of you because this is the first and probably the last Meego phone that we will see from Nokia. Most of its features and looks reminds me of Symbian. The squarecircle icons are still there but the experience is a bit different with Symbian. This one is faster and this phone has less bugs and slowdowns. The combination of the Clearblack Display and the Meego UI is just awesome. You can barely the edges of the screen.
The device that we used Meego 1.2 Harmattan. One unique feature of Meego that I like is Swipe. As you can see there are no navigational buttons or anything on the front. Just the sleek curve gorilla glass. To navigate between homescreens and applications you need to swipe it from the edges of the screen. It took some time for some people to navigate when they saw and use the Nokia N9 for the first time. In order to unlock the screen you just need to double tap the screen and voila! the screen turns on and you just need to swipe it from the edge.
Yes folks, there’s multitasking on Meego. There’s one panel in where you can see all the apps and games that you opened. I managed to open a lot of apps and games but I haven’t experienced any slowdowns. Another panel is where you can find your notifications and facebook & twitter feed. While the last panel is, of course, the menu.
Notification and feed panel
App drawer/multi-tasking panel?
There are some pre-installed games on the device which are quite exciting and fun like Galaxy On Fire 2, Need For Speed shift, Real Golf 2011 and Angry Birds with Magic which will have more levels if you use NFC but unfortunately, we didn’t have any other devices with NFC in here. As for the Nokia Maps, yes, they’re still usable and almost the same with the Windows phone version. Whenever I swiped back to the homescreen some of the games just stay suspended or paused .
The browser does it job well. It doesn’t support flash but as a mobile device, most of the pages loads well without errors and it isn’t buggy and slow. If you want to bookmark or you have a favorite site to visit everyday and you want to make a shortcut of it, it’s easy. You can put the an icon on the menu for the shortcut of a link. I find it hard to navigate between other tabs because it will need you to swipe to the app drawer and then find the other tab of the browser.
Apps? No worries. The Nokia Store got you covered. Even though that the Meego is DOA and will soon be replaced by Windows phone, there are still some apps and games in the Nokia Store. Don’t worry about the support because Nokia will still support this phone. There are some decent apps in the Nokia Store like the Opera Mobile and there are even rumors that there will be firefox on the Nokia N9 that will support flash. Facebook, twitter and skype? Don’t worry, you don’t need to download those apps because Nokia N9 had those inside. Once you connected your Facebook, Skype and twitter account. You can now see the latest feeds on the notifications and feed panel. Aside from that, You’ll also connect messaging and your contacts on your Facebook and skype account. You can use your Nokia N9 device to use Facebook Chat in messaging and check out your contacts. For skype, well I didn’t see a video call there but you can do voice call on it. Too bad, the front facing camera is now useless.
The best app ever created…wait what?
Nokia N9’s Music Player
The gallery
There aren’t special features on the gallery and on the music app but they look good. IMO, it is better than the iOS. Didn’t have any problems and slowdowns when playing those HD videos and large pictures. It’s fast and smooth folks.
Here’s a short hands-on of the Nokia N9:
Verdict Nokia N9 might have some features that the Nokia Lumia 800 doesn’t have like NFC and front facing camera but the Meego is already dead on arrival. FYI, Your Nokia phone will still work even though Nokia would stop supporting it. If you are into phones with great camera then you might want to add this on your list because the 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera performed well on our test. All in all, the phone was fast and the camera quality was awesome but like what I said before, Meego OS is already DOA. The Nokia N9 will soon be replaced by the Lumia 800 which will be launched this April here in the Philippines. Nokia N9 is already available since last year and it has 2 variants — Nokia N9 16GB and Nokia N9 64GB their SRPs are P24,190 and P26,790 respectively
The White Nokia N9 is also available but in limited quantities!
If you are into affordable Android smartphones then the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 should be included in your next-to-buy-phone-list. Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 will be one of the affordable Android smartphones when it comes up in the market. If you ask me, I think this phone got a decent specifications for a low-end phone. Just like any other affordable phones, it has a 800 MHz, and a fairly sized 3.27 HVGA screen. Not bad at all. It has an elegant and youthful design which may attract teens and first smartphone users.
Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 Specifications 58.6 x 109.4 x 11.9 mm, 106.8 g (with NFC) 800MHz Processor 3.27” HVGA(320×480) TFT Android 2.3(Gingerbread) Main(Rear): 3 Megapixel Fixed Focus Camera w/ video recording VGA@25fps GPS Bluetooth Wi-Fi Accelerometer Digital compass NFC (optional) 4GB User memory ＋ 512MB (RAM) microSD (up to 32GB)
Samsung recently announced the successor of the widely-known mid range Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2. And just as we expected, it won’t have a hardware just as fast like the Samsung Galaxy S advance. The Galaxy Ace 2 will still have a mid-range specifications and I was surprise that they used a Dual-core processor for this. Anyway, some of the notable features of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 are the larger 3.8″ WVGA screen, 5 megapixel AF camera with HD video recording and the dual core 800 Mhz dual-core processor. It was disappointing to see that this phone is use Android 2.3 Gingerbread instead of Ice Cream Sandwich. But let’s cross our fingers for a ICS update on this one. I believe that these specifications is quite good enough for a mid-range smartphone.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 Specifications 62.2 x 118.3 x 10.5 mm, 122g
LG doesn’t want to be late in the game so they created a 5″ tabphone that will compete with Sammy’s Galaxy Note called the LG Optimus Vu. It is a 5″ tablet/phone that has a 4:3 aspect ratio which is kinda odd on Android devices these days. Because of its 4:3, it is slightly wider than the Galaxy Note which means that this will be harder to hold and type on using one hand. IMO, I find this phone sexier than the Galaxy Note. I almost forgot to tell you guys that this phone has LTE radio inside. Yes, LTE!. We love 4G especially LTE! Too bad, LTE is still at testing here in the Philippines
LG Optimus Vu Specifications 139.6 x 90.4 x 8.5mm / Weight: 168 g 5 inch IPS (1024×768) Display 8 megapixel rear camera with Autofocus and LED Flash and 1.3 megapixel front camera 32 GB Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core processors Android 2.3 Gingerbread Battery: 2,080 mAh HDMI, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, T-DMB support, etc.
LG Optimus Vu Reviews and Hands-on
LG Optimus Vu Price in the Philippines No word yet regarding the release date and price in the Philippines
Nokia is still at the top of the mobile phone race owned by most Filipinos according to a recent survey. For the Metro Manila coverage, 500 face-to-face interviews were conducted among respondents with ages ranging from 16 to 60 years old across all economic classes. Among the questions asked was the brand of handset owned by Filipinos in Metro Manila, or what brand of mobile phone reflects the urban Filipino. 64% of those respondents told that they currently owned a Nokia device while the next brand got 12% only. But compared to 2010 study, Nokia had a decline of ownership from 70% in 2010 to 64% of 2012. More after the break
Mr. Dharmesh Goshalia is happy about the recent survey
Dharmesh Goshalia, General Manager of Nokia Philippines said that “These results from the Mobile Life Study of TNS only show that the Philippines is still a Nokia country”. And according to the General Manager of Nokia Philippines, 2012 will be another exciting year for Nokia because there will be MORE QWERTY and Dual sim devices that will be coming to our country and the Nokia Lumia devices will be coming very soon here in the Philippines.
Lumia 800, one of the Nokia with Windows Phones to ”watch out for,” says Goshalia.
Oh and stay tune to JAM Online to see the review of the Nokia N9
Happy Valentines day to all of you and today, Globe has given us a great valentines gift. What is it?, Well they just announced that they returned the one of the most popular promos ever, the Globe immortaltxt. With Globe Immortaltxt you’ll get SMS and voice minutes with no expiry. That’s right folks, the immortaltxt WON’T EXPIRE. Aside from immortaltxt there are a lot of new promos from Globe like the unlialltrio, allnetcombo and unlitingi. Check it out after the break!
Here’s the post from Globe’s Website:
Now it’s even more convenient to avail of prepaid call, text and surf promos! All you have to do is dial *143# (free of charge) on your Globe Prepaid mobile and choose the promo you want!
Choose Your Promo from these exciting new offers:
1. Immortal is back!Get SMS and voice minutes without expiry* with these promos.
IMMORTAL TXT
• 25 texts to Globe/TM + 5 texts to other networks for only P15
IMMORTAL TRIO
• 50 texts to Globe/TM + 5 texts to other networks + 5 minutes of calls to Globe/TM for only P25
*Only 100 immortal texts or 10 immortal call minutes can be accumulated at any one time. Registrations to Immortal Txt or Immortal Trio that will result to exceeding either limit will not be accommodated.
P5 maintaining balance is required to use allocations from Immortal Trio or Immortal Txt.
2. UNLI ALL TRIO • Unlimited calls and texts to Globe/TM + unlimited mobile browsing • Validity: o 1 day for P60 o 3 days for P150 o 7 days for P350 o 30 days for P1,400
3. ALL NET COMBO • Unlimited texts + 5 minutes of calls to all networks + 50MB of consumable mobile browsing • Validity: o 1 day for P30 o 3 days for P80 o 7 days for P150 o 30 days for P600
4. UNLI TINGI • Unlimited texts to all networks + unlimited calls to Globe/TM + unlimited mobile browsing • 1 hour validity for only P5 • Registration to Unli Tingi is available from 7am-9am only
You can even select your preferred validity, so talagang go lang ng go!
HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR PROMO ON THE *143# MENU:
1) Dial *143# on your phone then press CALL. 2) Wait for the menu to appear on your screen. 3) Once the menu appears, select your transaction and press “Reply/Response/Answer/(etc., depending on your phone model).” 4) Enter the number of your chosen transaction. To register to Choose Your Promo, press “Reply/Response/Answer/(etc., depending on your phone model)” then enter “1” for “NEW: Choose your promo.” Press “OK.” 5) Select your Choose Your Promo offer by pressing “Reply/Response/Answer/(etc., depending on your phone model)” then entering “1” for IMMORTAL TRIO, “2” for UNLI ALL TRIO, “3” for ALL NET COMBO, or “4” to select your promo based on your budget. Press “OK”. 6) Choose your validity by entering “1” for 30 days, “2” for 7 days, “3” for 3 days, and “4” for 1 day. Press “OK”. 7) Verify your choice by entering “1” to register to your chosen promo. Press “OK”. 8) Wait for the confirmation message notifying you of your successful registration.
Invalid entries (i.e., entering a number not in the choices, entering a letter or symbol instead of a number, etc.) will take you back to your previous menu.
These offers are available from February 15 to May 16, 2012.Registration is via *143# only. Dial it now for free!
I kinda like this. I use Immortaltxt most of the time when it was available back then. Anyway, what the new catch? Well globe has limit the immortaltxt to 100 immortal texts or 10 immortal call minutes. Anyway, Nice one Globe!. You sure know how to make your subscribers happy this Valentines day!
Globe and Smart will be having a big problem this year because another big player in the telco industry will arrive here in the Philippines. Some of you might be familiar with the company because Vodafone is already present in over 30 countries like UK, India and a lot more. Its headquarters is based in the United Kingdom but we’re not sure if they already have a local office here in the Philippines. Well, there are no Press releases or official announcements for this one. For the meantime, You can follow their Facebook, Youtube and Twitter accounts.
