wmc 2008
Random Stuff
Notes: Zombie Hotels in Spain
5:50AM Brian Lam | Hello. I’m still in Spain. Between jetlag, posting madness, and some insane hotel reservations, I ended up getting an hour of sleep each of the last two nights, which led to all sorts of vomiting and paranoia in between the blogging. More »
Phones
Hands-On LG’s KF700: Their Top Touch Phone Actually Pretty Good
3:00AM Brian Lam | Samsung’s new F480 full faced touchscreen handset meets a good competitor in LG’s KF700, their best phone released at Mobile World Congress. The phone has a 3-inch touchscreen, a slide out alphanumeric pad, and a scrollwheel on the back which pulls up a shortcut menu. Jesús liked the swiping action between widgets, which he shockingly described to me as “iPhone like.” Folks, the fanboy has spoken. There’s google search, maps, blogs, gmail, and youtube support (!). And non-US spec 3G, as well as a 3MP camera, MPEG4 video recorder, too. galleryPost('lgkf700', 5, ''); More »
Phones
Nokia N-Gage Video Hands-On
12:26AM Jesus Diaz | We played a bit with the new Nokia N-Gage service, which will be one of the core services on all the new Nokia phones presented here at the Mobile World Congress 2008. As we already knew, it’s a very similar philosophy to Xbox Live, a social-oriented game service with N-Gage points, pictures, reviews, scores and rankings, so you don’t have to play against a friend live, but you can still compete. The experience was smooth, the games themselves fast and crispy, all of them playable before purchasing them. Could Nokia make it work this time? More »
Phones
Nokia N96 Hands-On: Basically a Video Oriented N95
11:52PM Brian Lam | The N95 smartphone just does fine with its video playback. But the N96’s 16GB of internal memory, slightly bigger 2.8-inch screen, DVB TV tuner, special video browsing UI and kickstand make it better than its pappy. More »
Phones
Hands-On Samsung’s F480 Prada Phone Knockoff (Verdict: I’ll Pass)
11:37PM Brian Lam | Samsung’s F700 and F300 are joined by the F480, a pretty clear knockoff of the LG Prada (down to the fake leather case). I find its touchscreen implementation rough, even if it’s improved from Samsung’s previous handsets. Overall, I’ll pass, especially at the proposed European price of 350 to 400 Euros (~$565 to $646) More »
Phones
Overheard at MWC 2008: Executive Android Chit Chat
8:57PM Brian Lam | This sort of premature talk will either turn out to be unfounded fear or prescience (or neither!) but we overheard this whispering outside of hall 8: Android is Dead —One nameless, faceless, exec to another More »
Phones
What the Samsung Soul’s Haptic OLED Touchscreen Soul Patch Is Like
8:30AM Brian Lam | The Samsung Soul tries, and largely succeeds at making a touchscreen 5 way navpad. Like the Maximus Optimus keyboard, the controller is backlit by an OLED screen (this one is a two colour deal) that changes icons depending on the context: More »
Phones
