Specification:

Main LCD : 1.81” 128×128 pixel, 65K Colour STN
MIDI : 16 Poly, Speaker : 17Ö
Battery : 760mAh Li-ion
Radio : 900/1800 MHz,
Size : 43 x 82 x 22.5 mm,
Weight : less 80g
EMS / MMS, JAVA 2.0, WAP 2.0, Sound UI (Voice keytone, Voice dial, Effect sound)

The LGC1100 was a very bad phone and the headphones didn’t work because you could still hear everything outside. It didn’t have anything flashy on the inside. I had to charge it every other night. overall it was an Ok phone but not one that I would have dreamed for.

The functions of the LG C1100 are OK but there should be no reason not to include bluetooth. It breaks easy or not checked on the assembly lines. I say go with a different model unless you need a cheap mobile.

Good Points: I found this phone very cute and the mirror on the front is handy. It also made sounds when you flipped it open and shut and other quirky and unique things like that!! It has lasted me over a year which most phones don’t anymore.

Bad Points: Although the features are pretty bog standard that’s all I needed so it didn’t bother me. One bad point is that its doesn’t have a camera but I could live without that. The only problem I had with it is that now a year after getting it the battery isn’t lasting very long.

General comments: I have found this LG C1100 mobile phone reliable and I just love it and all my friends, with their flashy camera and 3g phones, agree with me!!

Review Video:

Mobile phones are devices for communication. It helps you to communicate with any person who is on other part of the world. LG B2100 Mobile Phone is a new designed device introduced by LG Company. This product is provided with Network technology of GSM which stands for Globule System for mobile communication. The frequency bands used in this mobile are GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900.

• The phone is available with an internal antenna that enhances the look of the phone.

• It has a screen which is of a graphical type and supports 65K colours.

• This mobile phone has a phone-book which can store up to 200 entries in its memory.

• Call register of this product can record the calls up to 15 number which includes:
• Outgoing calls
• Receiving calls
• Missed calls

• It is provided with Glass 10 GPRS feature which helps you to transfer data very efficiently.

• LG B2100 Mobile Phone can supports modem feature with transferring speed from 32 to 48 kilo bits per seconds.

• WAP or “Wireless Application Protocol” feature in this compact designed mobile phone helps to browse the internet.

• It has a vibrating alert mode to alert you with vibration.

• You can send and receive SMS (Short Message Service) in this mobile. You can share video clips and picture message to your friends as this mobile product has MMS (multi-media message service) facility as well.

• Your slim designed handset is manufactured with VGA type camera facility in it.

• It has the maximum resolution up to 640 x 480 pixels both horizontally and vertically.

• To enlarge the image in this camera, it is provided with 4x digital zoom feature.

• LG B2100 Mobile Phone is available with two installed games and you can download more games with the support of the integrated Java.

• PIM “personal information management” includes the following option such as :
• Clock
• Alarm
• Calculator
• Voice Memo
• Dictionary

• In this mobile phone you can download the following options like :
• Wallpapers
• Applications
• Games
• Logos
• Ring tones

• You can edit and store number of photos, video clips and messages that you receive in this cute mobile phone.

• A standard Lithium-Ion battery is provided in this product which offers the talk time up to 2 hours and 3 minutes. It provides the standby time up to 250 hours.

• The weight of this compact device is 73 grams including battery and its dimensions are 103 x 43 x 16 mm.

I spent the last three weeks with an i-mate Smartflip Windows Mobile Smartphone. I am saying this because I am not usually the person to carry a Smartphone, rather having a Pocket PC Phone Edition with me. But the i-mate Smartflip is quite a looker, and functional.

It starts being a very thin (98.5 x 51.4 x 15.8mm) and light (99g with battery) handset in a clamshell form factor. It fits comfortably in the hand, and the keypad is easily accessible for one handed operation. The keypad is actually very interesting, being completely flush and made of a single piece, instead of having separate buttons.

The keypad comes with the standard keys you expect to find on a mobile phone (including answer and hangup), plus soft keys for access to contextual menu options, home and back keys. On the sides you find a camera button, volume control and a voice command button, used to initiate some actions with your voice (voice training/recording is required though).

Also you will find the keypad is backlit with a very soft blue light – almost too soft, perhaps a bit more light would be good. But the T9 predictive text input helps a lot, and with the ability to add words to the built-in dictionary, it worked ok.

The internal 2.2″ LCD is nice and bright, with 240×320 pixels (QVGA) resolution. It serves as the viewfinder as well when the handset is in camera mode – used for still images or video recordings.

A secondary external 1.2″ LCD with 128×128 pixels is available and it’s one of the most interesting parts on this device. It shows a status screen including date, time, network status, signal strength, battery level and e-mail notification. It also announces incoming calls – and if you have pictures for your contacts those are shown when a call is coming. It is also used as a camera viewfinder for self-pictures, but more importantly, it’s a media display, showing information about music if you use the handset for playback of your song collection. Three keys under the external display serve as media control with reverse, forward, play/pause functions – also used as soft keys when the device is closed and you need to interact with some message on the external screen.

The problem here is that you can’t just plug any pair of headphones. You see, to save space and make this a very thin handset, the manufacturer decided to create a special USB adapter, serving as port for charging, synchronisation and sound output. The best option is to actually arm yourself with a pair of Bluetooth Stereo headsets and use these with your i-mate Smartflip.

Even though it’s not listed in the specs, this device supports the A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), a stereo profile for use with Bluetooth headsets. But don’t go too far away from the device. In my tests you can get broken sound if you are more than 3 metres from your phone. Otherwise it works very well. Of course you can also use a Bluetooth headset with the i-mate Smartflip, just won’t be stereo.

This Smartphone is quite responsive, although I found out that I risked running out of memory pretty soon – the best option is to make sure you add any media and programs to a microSD card. Which is not bad, but it means your collection of SD and miniSD cards from your Pocket PC will have not much use here.

The i-mate Smartflip runs Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU2, which means it brings the Messaging Security and Feature Pack built-in, ready to talk to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 with SP2 and start using the direct push e-mail for automatic synchronisation when new e-mails arrive on the server, and the security policies management.

It also means that on this configuration you will likely need to install a certificate. If your server uses a certificate issued by one of the kown root CA then you are lucky. Just copy the file and install it. But if you are like me and have a self-signed certificate, then make sure you head to the Club i-mate website and download the utility to install these certificates. Unlike the Pocket PCs, the device is locked so you can’t go installing any certificate.

To donwload this utility you need to register the device. I didn’t want to because I am returning it to Vodafone New Zealand after this review, so I tried contacting the Club i-mate on-line support. It’s a real-time chat with one of their support people. After explaining why I couldn’t register the device, the support person sent me the appropriate file and I was able to connect the device to my Exchange Server pretty much straight away. Thumbs up for their service on this!

If you are like me and live on e-mail, more than phone calls, then you are well served. The direct push functionality works well, and I had no problem receiving e-mails. The only problem here in New Zealand is the lack of EDGE networks. Vodafone currently provides GPRS, UMTS and HSDPA, and EDGE would be an upgrade to GRPS, with potentially 3x the speeds. Alas, the i-mate Smartflip works on GPRS and EDGE only, but for e-mail and text only RSS reading it worked perfectly well.

As part of the software package, on top of the standard Outlook Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, i-mate also bundles the Smartflipe with the ClearVue series of document viewers, compatible with Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel files. It also comes with eTrust Antivirus, a Task Manager to help manage the programs running on your phone, and a J2ME run-time environment (J2ME, CLDC 1.1, MIDP 2.0).

For people wanting to be always in touch, you can do so through e-mail, SMS, MMS and the MSN Messenger client for IM.

The sound quality during voice calls is very good, and it is comfortable to hold during calls, although most of the times I used my Bluetooth headset for this. And even with Bluetooth always on, the battery lasted for a couple of days. I actually didn’t have to worry much about it.

The built-in 1.3 megapixel digital camera is usable, and you can get some good shots for a mobile blog, but don’t think you will use it as a print quality still camera. Think of it as fun to use.

Overall the phone shows good construction, no problems with the system in general (no, I didn’t have to reset it anytime during these weeks) and worked reliably during my use.

Pros

• Nice easy-to-read screen
• Very cool secondary (external) display
• Looks good in black
• Push e-mail that works out-of-the box with Microsoft Exchange servers

Cons

• Small internal memory
• Non-standard sound output adapter
• All those mini-USB retractable cables are now useless

Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia

Price: £439.99 inc VAT unlocked
Rating: 5 out of 6 (According to TestFreaks, who analyses most reviews)
Good: Well-specified; effective custom UI; clever optical touchpad
Bad: Proprietary USB port; touchscreen could be more responsive; high unlocked price
Verdict: The SGH-i900 Omnia is one of the better Windows Mobile smartphones with a bespoke UI, but the lack of keyboard limits its appeal.
Manufacturer: Samsung

We missed the launch of the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia a few weeks ago and while this Windows Mobile smartphone has now been on sale for a while, we still thought it was worth reviewing. After all, if Samsung thinks it’s an important enough product to warrant a huge marketing campaign extolling its virtues, who are we to argue?

Smartphones have long evolved past the point where they’re just a way to make calls and manage your contacts, and Samsung makes much of the Omnia’s multimedia abilities in its ads (and made the best unboxing video we’ve ever seen). Of course a smartphone with any kind of audio/video pretensions now has the iPhone to contend with, but Samsung has taken some suitable compensatory steps.

In fact Samsung seems to have used the iPhone as a design inspiration for the Omnia – the flush-fitting touch-screen has the same silver trim, offset by a matte black back. There’s a bit too much plastic for the Omnia to feel like a really swish high-end smartphone, but it’s certainly among the better-looking Windows Mobile devices we’ve seen.

If you believe the marketing message, the Omnia’s multimedia credentials begin with its screen. This may look much the same as those on other Windows Mobile smartphones, but it has a 240 x 320 400 resolution rather than the standard 240 x 320. This gives an aspect ration of 1.66:1 rather than 1.33:1, and so is much better suited to displaying widescreen video. This may be so, but we should point out that since the Omnia’s screen measures a mere 3.2in from corner to corner, ‘better suited’ is a wholly relative term and we doubt many people will be buying one just to get a better view on their dodgy copy of Iron Man.

The screen automatically flips between portrait and landscape modes when the Omnia is turned on its side and the accelerometer’s sensitivity can be adjusted to stop the display from rotating inadvertently (a problem we had initially). The ability to silence the phone simply by putting it face-down on the table is a nice touch, too – much easier than fumbling with buttons when your Sugababes ringtone embarrasses you in a meeting.

The taller-than-usual screen makes little difference to the normal operation of Windows Mobile (the resolution isn’t that much higher than normal, after all), although it is rather grainy. Don’t go looking for a stylus to prod it with, though – there is a stubby one in the box, but there’s nowhere to stow it and it has to be tied to the Omnia’s lanyard loop. You’ll be better off not bothering, since the Omnia’s touch-screen generally works well with a fingertip, even though it doesn’t employ any special kind of sensing technology (though it will vibrate with each finger press, if you like).

The omission of the usual Windows and OK buttons from the front panel seems to be something of a trend with recent Windows Mobile smartphones and while it’s a pain to poke the on-screen Start button to open the program list and the X button to close a window, the Omnia at least has an alternative. Like HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, Samsung has fitted the Omnia out with its own custom user interface (called TouchWiz) that tries to keep Windows Mobile out of sight for as long as possible.

And it succeeds, to a large extent. Gone is the Today screen, replaced by a ‘Desktop’ onto which various tools can be dragged – much like the Sidebar in Windows Vista. The Desktop isn’t really big enough to cope with more than a few (most seem to be designed to make the worse possible use of available space), but it’s a handy way to get quick access to such things as the FM tuner or ringer profiles.

The Main Menu soft-key brings up a simple program launcher with large, colourful icons for installed applications. The awkward way in which the touch-screen responds to fingertip scrolling makes this occasionally infuriating to use, but it’s certainly a step-up from the usual Windows Mobile Program Files folder and Start menu.

Samsung has also included a handful of bespoke applications – the aforementioned FM tuner, audio and video players, a photo viewer, phone book, podcast manager and RSS reader. There’s nothing here that can’t be had with any Windows Mobile device, but the consistent and colourful design of each app makes them a good deal more user-friendly than usual.

If you lack the fine motor skills to fumble with the fiddlier parts of the Windows Mobile UI, then the Omnia has another neat solution. The usual mechanical four-way pad below the screen is missing and instead there’s the Omia has an optical sensor – this works in the same, but with just the brush of a fingertip. Alternatively, it can be set to work as a touchpad for an on-screen mouse pointer for much finer control of Windows Mobile’s features. It’s not quite up to a full stylus stand-in, but it’s fine for clicking radio buttons and dragging scroll bars.

Samsung drops a point for using a proprietary USB connector for the Omnia’s combine mains/USB charge and sync port, plus another for using the same port as the earphone socket. It gets one back for being sensible enough to supply a hands-free kit that will work with any earphones with a 3.5mm jack plug, although most sets will create a good eight feet of cable between the Omnia and your ears.

Nonetheless, Samsung isn’t alone in this socket silliness and this doesn’t overly detract from what is one of the better-looking and better-equipped Windows Mobile devices around. The lack of a physical keyboard means that it isn’t a smartphone for everyone (and the on-screen keyboard isn’t great), but if you’re unable (or unwilling) to use an iPhone, but still want a well-rounded multimedia model, the SGH-i900 Omnia is worth a look. You can view more best cell phone reviews at Testfreaks.com

Nothing is quite official about this ASUS phone just yet, but the current speculation is that it’s actually the ASUS P565 and, judging from some newly-detailed specs, it looks like it shouldn’t have much trouble attracting its share of interest. Leading the way is a speedy 800MHz Marvell Tavor processor (apparently a first for any phone), and a still relatively uncommon 2.8-inch VGA screen, which should go nicely with the VGA camera for video conferencing (you’ll get 3-megapixels for still mages). Otherwise, you can expect European HSDPA connectivity, built-in GPS, a 1300mAh battery that promises 3.5 hours of 3G talk time, and Windows Mobile 6.1 for an OS (with ASUS’ Glide software on top of it), of course. No word on a price just yet, but word is this one is on track for a release as soon as October.

Our phone radar say’s this is the new Asus P565, this powerful handset packs a mighty punch even though the facade gives you a feeling of calm this is this the first smartphone that boasts a 800 Mhz processor.

As we are so convinced that the photo we are posting is the Asus P565 I will carry on and give you a full spec of this mighty specimen. Well the P565 has a 3 Megapixel auto-focus camera, has European HSDPA, Bluetooth, GPS of the SIRF III variety as well as this smartphone having a VGA screen.

Asus will also add their own additional Asus Glide software that will adapt Windows Mobile. Talk time on the P565 is 3.5 hours whereas standby 150-200 hours, you have audio MP3, WMA, 3GP, AAC and AAC + you can also download MP3 and midi to use as your ringtones. If the whispers are correct this smartphone should be released in October.

If you know anything about the Asus P565 and we are wrong in thinking this is a photo of the precious beast then please comment and let know.

Motorola has announced that its new MOTO VE240 cell phone will be available to Cricket Communications and Metro PCS customers. The phone should be available from Cricket Communications in Tulsa on November 15th, though there isn’t any word on pricing just yet. The VE240 will have features such as:

• Stereo Bluetooth
• MP3 playback
• microSD card expansion up to 4GB
• USB 2.0 file transfer

Motorola has quietly released 2 new Bluetooth headsets, the H270 and the H390. The H270 looks like your normal entry-level headset with a call/end button and volume control keys. It will be able to last about 6 hours of talk-time and 6 days of standby time. The H390 on the other hand, will have a longer lasting battery which should be good for up to 8 hours of talk-time and 8 days of standby time. Another feature of the H390 is the LED indicator which is capable of displaying 3 colors, green, yellow and red. It probably goes without saying that green indicates that it’s fully charged, yellow after some use, and red when it needs to be juiced up again.