Toshiba's Got Game

image courtesy pcworld

Oh wow, I love MWC and the weeks preceding it. So stumbling about the internet, I came upon Toshiba's announcement of the TG01. This thing is about as close to overkill as a cell phone gets, I think. It has a 4.1" screen. To put that in perspective, think of the iPhone. Pretty big screen, right? Well, this screen is 0.6" bigger diagonally. It is a MONSTER.

Toshiba's also apparently built it on the Snapdragon platform, clocking the TG01 at nearly a GHz. There's all sorts of pictures available over at TechOn of the device's performance in 3D rendering and GPS navigation. The UI's a bit odd, though. It has a number of of (I believe 3) vertical stripes, that can then be flicked through. The device runs on Win-Mo, though, which means that the massive, beautiful 4.1" screen... is a resistive one. Get out your stylus, and check this phone out.

Back from break

And what a break it was. Unfortunately, my iPod Touch was stolen, so I'm currently working with a Sansa c250 as my main MP3 player. In addition, my XV6700 finally broke, so it's back to dumbphone-ville for me until my contract is up. 

Seems my friend picked up a T-Mobile G1 over break. I got to use it for a few minutes, and from the impression I got, it seems pretty sweet. Expect me to attempt a review of it as soon as I can wrench the thing from his hands.

About that iPhone Battery Life...

My friend was complaining recently that she can't hold down a half day of charge on her iPhone 3G, whereas other friends have lauded the phone for its excellent battery life. Now, both of these people tend to use their iPhones the same amount, so I don't really have a clue as to why there would be so much variance in battery life. I haven't managed to find anything conclusive online.

Defective unit, maybe? Who knows?

Support a Good Cause!

Hey everyone! I'm playing a charity concert on Dec. 20th. There will be some really awesome musicians there like Glen Burtnik and Marshall Crenshaw. You can find out more about the show at this site. If you're from the New Jersey area, I hope to see you there!

Blackberry Storm

image courtesy ZDNet

Today, I had to go speak with a professor. As I entered his office, I was a tad shocked to find the new Kanye West album (I don't recommend it) playing. I was equally shocked to find a brand new Blackberry Storm sitting on his desk. He noticed me glancing at it, so he encouraged me to play with it a bit. Here are my initial impressions:

1. The click screen takes a lot of getting used to. Not in the good way, either. It just felt slow and rather ungraceful, especially when working on something like typing quickly.
2. The screen is quite nice, actually. Nothing astounding, but it definitely was bright and clear.
3. Apparently there's Rhapsody support planned, which should be great news to any of you who might use the Rhapsody service.
4. I didn't manage to see any sort of app store. I guess the reason I expected it to be obvious was because of the App Store's prominence on the new Apple touchscreen devices.

I would have loved to get a chance to compare it to the iPhone 3G, but I couldn't find one of those lying around. My professor and I chatted a bit, and he made it pretty clear that he thinks the Storm is really more a marketing power play than an actual product, and that the Bold smokes the Storm in terms of usability and utility (he's an entrepreneurship professor, in case you were wondering). Interesting thoughts.

Touch Diamond

image courtesy Engadget

Ran into an old friend in the elevator today. He had a new phone. T'was the HTC Touch Diamond (Sprint Version, though I hear there's an AT&T version to be released soon). Here are my initial impressions:

1. Holy crow!* Resistive-touch screen technology has come a very very very long way since the XV6700. This thing has a relatively smooth upper surface, no little dips at either end of the screen.
2. The phone UI, Touch Flo 3D I believe, is much more finger friendly. Unfortunately, the screen's the same size as my XV6700. It's much smaller than my XV6700, though, and oodles lighter.
3. Screen is relatively bright, but not quite as bright as the iPhone (you guys will get very tired of my constant comparisons, I'm sure, but the iPhone is still the state-of-the-art in a number of technologies)
4. Stylus is still necessary for navigating a lot of the sub menus (TouchFlo only goes so deep before you're back to the not so great Win Mo UI)
5. The HTC keyboard is definitely an improvement over the basic WinMo keyboard, but it's still just a software keyboard.
   

Didn't get to try the web or any games on it, but I'm sure it's the Windows Mobile standard. Decent smartphone, but without a tactile keyboard or any haptic response, it's not the most friendly for anyone who texts or emails often.

*(I just read Twilight, and found that to be the most amusing exclamation ever. Oh censorship.)

[drools] Prettyness...

Image grace à GeekInc

So, I happened upon this gorgeous thing, called the HTC Touch HD (it's on the right of the above photo, if you didn't guess already). The screen is MASSIVE at 3.8" diagonally, and it really looks amazing. Granted, it's Windows Mobile, but I seriously can't wait to play around with this. Here's the info from Engadget:

"We're still sans a press release, but a friendly tipster found this quite official page at HTC's very own site, depicting the sexy Touch HD from every angle, with every spec exposed. The rumors were naturally spot on, but that doesn't mean we're any less enthused about the 3.8-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, and 3.5mm audio jack. Connectivity-wise we've got Europe-friendly HSDPA, GPS / A-GPS, 802.11g WiFi (we weren't clear on that one before), Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR and a microSD slot. On the software side there's TouchFLO 3D on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro. There's also a front-facing VGA camera for video calls, 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM. HTC expects the 1350 mAh battery to score you 390 minutes of 3G talk and 450 ours of 3G standby, with 120 minute video calls just for kicks. The phone measures 12mm thick. Still no word on availability, price, or how you're ever going to stop us from cramming Android onto this thing."

UPDATE: It isn't coming stateside, says HTC :-( Here's the news release, via Twitter.