The Windows Phone 7.8 update for old WP devices is set to arrive in early 2013 but a video has already surfaced showing the update running on the Nokia Lumia 900.
The title of the video is “WP 7.8 update for Lumia 900 – quick preview“, and by quick preview it meant 37 seconds of hands-on. It doesn’t show much detail but you’ll notice resizable live tiles, a new Xbox icon, and a fluid UI navigation.
Expected WP 7.8 features include a new boot, lock and home screens, more color themes, Bluetooth file sharing, IE improvements, Xbox Smart Glass, and lots of OS fixes. The WP 7.8 OS on the Lumia 900 is not the final version so expect some things to change until its official launch.
****** A word from the fine folks of Sun Cellular ******
Sun Cellular launches BlackBerry Prepaid!
Get the Sun BlackBerry All Day 50 for all-day unlimited mobile internet, unlimited social networking, unlimited instant messaging, unlimited BlackBerry browsing and unlimited BBM for only Php50.
Nokia has recently posted the Nokia 114 on their website in India without the usual announcement. Let’s take a closer look at this dual-SIM handset to see what Nokia has in store for us.
The Nokia 114 is basically a slightly better version of the Nokia 109. It’s a much simpler call and text device unlike dual-SIM Android handsets in the local market.
It has a 1.8-inch non-touchscreen display which packs a modest 160 x 128 resolution. Along with the display is a familiar keypad layout with a 4-way navigation button in the middle.
Flip it on its back and you’ll see its camera which is capable of shooting 176 x 144 videos. Underneath its plastic case is the micro-SD card slot accompanied with its 1080mAh battery which is 20% more than what the 109 has.
The SIM card slots can be found on the right side of the phone, making it easier for users to swap SIM cards even without turning off the device.
Pricing and availability outside India of this device remains to be known, but we’re guessing that the Nokia will release the 114 in time for the Christmas season.
****** A word from the fine folks of Sun Cellular ******
Sun Cellular launches BlackBerry Prepaid!
Get the Sun BlackBerry All Day 50 for all-day unlimited mobile internet, unlimited social networking, unlimited instant messaging, unlimited BlackBerry browsing and unlimited BBM for only Php50.
THE ebullience of Chico Pasion and Francis Capati of Phoneco was palpable in Friday’s launch in Cebu of the company’s Cloudfone Android line.
“We will kill feature phones!” “We don’t need feature phones!” “We want people to throw away their phones and update to a new one!”
Pasion, national sales manager of Phoneco, said they want the low to mid-range market to move to Android instead of buying or keeping their feature phones, the industry term for phones that are more than just basic calling devices but lack the features of a smartphone.
“If not for the price, I don’t think people will buy feature phones,” he said during Friday’s Cloudfone launch in SM City Cebu. The company’s devices are meant to answer the lower to mid-market demand for smartphones, he said. Cloudfone models sell from about P2,500 to P7,777.
Full smartphone experience
“We want to be the leader in the Android market,” Pasion said, pointing out that among Filipino brands, “not one brand can claim they own the Android sphere.”
BIG BATTERY. The flagship Cloudfone model, the Thrill 430x, comes with a battery that can power the unit for 3 days, officials said. (Photo by Marlen Limpag)
He said they want to “provide the full smartphone experience” to the low to mid-end market segment.
He said statistics showing increasing smartphone adoption and Internet and mobile Internet usage prompted their company to focus on producing Android devices.
Capati said standard features of Cloudfone models are dual-SIM capability, WiFi hotspot-enabled and FM radio. He said the company’s devices use either Android Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich. The model numbers of their devices indicate screen sizes.
Challenging boundaries
Pasion said Phoneco is “challenging boundaries” with Cloudfone, challenging assumptions that: 1) phone manufacturers cannot survive without feature phones, 2) an HD screen cannot be done on less than P10,000, and 3) big battery comes at a price.
The company’s flagship phone is the Thrill 430x. It has a 4.3-inch IPS (in-plane switching technology) QHD capacitive touchscreen display that makes for rich visuals and an eight-megapixel AF camera with dual LED flash and a front camera. The phone runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich and has a 1.2GHz dual core processor. But what makes the phone stand out is its battery: a polymer 4160mAh beast that can power the phone for three days, Pasion and Capati said. Most Android devices barely last a day with extensive use.
The Cloudfone Thrill 430x beside an iPhone 4s. (Photo by Marlen Limpag)
I’ve been able to play with the phone for three days now (my wife, who was covering the launch for BusinessWorld, won the unit during a raffle and asked me to set it up) and I think the Thrill 430X is really impressive for its price– P7,777. It’s a bit heavy, about an iPhone-and-a-half, but that’s a small price to pay for its battery life.
Cebu distributor
In Cebu, you can buy Cloudfone units from RC Goldline, its exclusive distributor. They set up a demo kiosk in SM City Cebu where consumers can try out the different devices.
Capati said people do not have to save up to buy their phones. He said people can immediately buy the device after trying these out.
Pasion said their phones are designed in the Philippines but assembled in China. He said they are currently in talks with an Australian company to export their devices to that country.
Pasion said they are set to release their own tablet either by the end of the year or early 2013.
He said, during his “Fearless Forecasts” portion of his presentation, that by 2013, “majority of phones will be more than 4 inches” in screen size. He also said that their competitors “will copy our big battery in Q2.” But, he said, “we will continue to challenge boundaries.”
BIG BATTERY. The Cloudphone Thrill 430x comes with a polymer 4160mAh battery that can power the phone for three days.
We’re here at Bangkok, Thailand for the BlackBerry Jam Asia 2012 or previously known as DevCon Asia (Developer’s Conference). We got a chance to talk to the RIM’s head honchoes to tell us more about their latest project, the BlackBerry 10.
The upcoming BlackBerry 10 was built from the ground up following RIM’s three major principle; Integrated, Social and Beautiful. Each aspect of the new OS revolves around those three things, from the UI down to the apps that the company has heavily invested on.
BlackBerry Flow and Peek
RIM has put in a lot of effort in to the BB10’s UI that veers away from the typical physical keyboard/button navigation. In addition to this, the company also envisioned a UI which would let the users seamlessly switch or open a new app without having to close the previous app. The multi-tasking experience they’re gunning for is similar to the PC experience, wherein users can just switch from app to app without the UI closing the other app that they were using it.
The result is a UI called BlackBerry Flow which, to our opinion, looks very promising. The interface is, in some aspects, similar to the UI of the BlackBerry PlayBook which relies heavily on swipe gestures. But RIM took it to the next level by ensuring that users can easily transition from one app to the other and letting the other open apps run on the background while they’re doing it. In addition, BB10 allows user to just Peek in to the other apps such as BlackBerry Hub by just swiping a little to the right without having to close the app that they’re currently on.
To give you a better insight on how BlackBerry Flow, here’s a short demo courtesy of RIM’s Head of Software Portfolio, Vivek Bhardwaj.
BlackBerry Hub
As mentioned earlier, Integration is one of the key aspects of the BB10. RIM understands that users will most likely be in multiple social networking sites and managing each separately can be a pain in the neck. Having said that, the company unified most of those SNS to a single purposeful native app called BlackBerry Hub.
With BlackBerry Hub, SNS notifications, email, even calendar events/invitation are now all in one place. Another great thing about it is that it allows users to update their FB status or Tweet directly inside the app. This in turn makes it easier for the user to interact with their friends because they don’t need to go to the FB/Twitter app to do it.
BBM 7.0
Messaging is an integral part of the BlackBerry ecosystem. It’s been RIM’s bread and butter which made their device a must-have for some users. The company took it upon themselves to improve the BBM service by incorporating some of the sough-after features found on other communication apps.
BBM 7.0 enables BlackBerry users to communicate better thanks to its new feature called BBM Voice that allows them to make free calls over Wi-Fi. The good news is that the latest version of BBM is not only limited to the BlackBerry 10 , meaning it’s compatible with older BB handset so long as it’s running on BB OS 5.0 and up.
You can also check out our previous
Two new BlackBerry handsets
Along with the launch of the upcoming BlackBerry 10, RIM will also launch two new BB handsets that will run on the new OS. One will be a full touch device while the other one is a hybrid handset that is both touch-enabled and has a physical keyboard.
The device that’s getting all the attention (praises or criticism) right now is the full touch model because it’s the only device that RIM has distributed to developers. However, RIM announced yesterday that they will start seeding Dev Alpha C devices to eligible developers so they can start creating/porting their apps to the QWERTY-sporting BlackBerry handset.
Summary
RIM acknowledges the fact that BlackBerry’s strengths have always been BBM and the handset’s keyboard. The company is hoping to capitalize on those two aspects again by offering relevant enhancements to make each aspect more functional and appealing.
Now I can keep on blabbing how awesome the BlackBerry 10 is but I think it’ll be better if I just let Christopher Smith, Martin Mallyck and Alec Saunders tell you what you can expect from BlackBerry 10. Enjoy!
Note: Listening to this may cause severe LSS. You’ve been warned.
RIM will be unveiling the BlackBerry 10, along with the two new handsets on January 30 next year. We hope that we’ll be invited to cover the launch, but even if we’re not, rest assure that we’ll bring you the latest buzz on the upcoming OS and the devices that will feature it.
****** A word from the fine folks of Sun Cellular ******
Sun Cellular launches BlackBerry Prepaid!
Get the Sun BlackBerry All Day 50 for all-day unlimited mobile internet, unlimited social networking, unlimited instant messaging, unlimited BlackBerry browsing and unlimited BBM for only Php50.
Do you remember the times when phones had extremely long life cycles? Or even when mobile technology didn’t advance so rapidly? Those were probably the times when the dumbphones were prevalent.
A dumbphone is defined as something that lacks the features of a smartphone. Mostly, these dumbphones only serve texting and calling as their purpose, but rarely we see some twists in their production; some manufacturers even include a mobile flashlight in the device. It might not be very pleasant to hear or read, but so far it’s the term that is most common. Filipinos might even say “pang-tawag at pang-text lang”.
While some people are very focused on smartphones, there exists this market that we rarely consider innovating upon. We think it’s a very good idea nonetheless to reinvent the average dumbphone – especially in the Philippines.
If you didn’t know, the Philippines is considered as the texting capital of the world. Think about it: do you think that the majority of texts sent come from smartphone users?
While it’s partially true that most people who use dumbphones are those that don’t have the extra budget, it is also true that some people just like to own a dumbphone to lessen the threat of holdups and theft.
Most manufacturers in the Philippines are taking advantage of this situation – the battle however is in price and in quality. Most dumbphones available now are almost entirely the same as the ones released years ago; only the designs keep changing.
Some phone manufacturers might not be interested in this idea, since it may damage the premium images that they have established, such as HTC and Apple.
When most companies are competing with lower prices, why not create something that costs a little bit more while adding some killer ideas such as strong casings, batteries that last up to more than a week, a mirror as a back cover or something basic like a very comfortable QWERTY keyboard?
Some companies have already tried these distinguishing ideas, but none have become a major success so far. They, however, caught the attention of some people.
Examples include the John’s Phone – a phone made in the Netherlands that only makes and receives calls and the OwnPhone – a very customizable phone that only calls the people most important to you.
These phones aren’t available locally but people could surely get a glimpse of how some dumbphones abroad differ in their own way.
We were deeply thinking about the Nokia 3310 for some reason. Nokia could revive the aforementioned dumbphone and make it a hit, especially with all the traction it is getting. From that idea alone, maybe we can see a true successor to the “unbreakable” phone. This could be similar to Motorola’s revival of the Razr, however that ended up being a smartphone.
Think of the article as some sort of shout out. As people enjoy choices and different angles through smartphones, why not with dumbphones? If you had the chance to reinvent the dumbphone, how would you pull it off? Feel free to write your answers, comments and opinions on the matter down below.
****** A word from the fine folks of Sun Cellular ******
Sun Cellular launches BlackBerry Prepaid!
Get the Sun BlackBerry All Day 50 for all-day unlimited mobile internet, unlimited social networking, unlimited instant messaging, unlimited BlackBerry browsing and unlimited BBM for only Php50.
