Quantcast Mobile Philippines: October 2004 Archives

October 2004 Archives

m|ph October

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Have you gotten your October issue of m|ph yet?
MPH Cover, October 2004 It features a new paper stock, crisper colors, and is very, very orange. What's more, you can now bend, spindle and fold your mobile magazine for better portability!
The issue centers on mobile entertainment, and includes a shootout of hard disc-based MP3 players, a look at the Blackberries and push technology, playing movies on your mobile devices, and a roundup of multimedia laptops, among others.
It may have arrived a bit later than usual, but that's because we had to do something about that strange smell of freshly baked m|ph that plagued our previous issue. That, and the new paper, required some fresh logistics. But we're okay now, folks!
We'd love to hear your opinions about our new paper stock! Happy reading!
www.suncellular.com.ph That SUN Cellular promo is starting to pick up real fast - a lot of people have been sending me their new SUN cellular numbers and get this -- asking me to send them mine!! (the presumptous little..) It's the latest local Telco craze - text and call all you want just for an additional monthly P250.00 (US$5.00) for post paid and P100.00 (US$2.00) for prepaid. The 24/7 promo is ideal for young lovers or the gimik barkada who constantly keep in touch. So what's the catch? The unlimited text and calls are only from SUN to SUN SIM cards. The fine print also says, With 24/7 Call & Text Unlimited, you can enjoy unlimited local calls and local texts to other Sun subscribers anytime and anywhere within the given validity period. Ahhh ... (but I admit, a good way to build a stronger subscriber base)

Remote Uncontrollable

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A few issues back at m|ph, I noted how infrared devices, such as universal remote controllers, should technically be regulated because they are, after all, capable of interfering with somebody else’s device (i.e. television set). TV can be so entertaining Well, now comes proof positive that this otherwise whimsical matter should really be a cause for alarm (at least as far as my warped priorities are concerned). A company named Cornfield Electronics, Inc. has come up with a keychain device that does just one thing and one thing alone, namely turn off practically any television set that you point it at. The TV-B-GoneThe aptly named TV-B-Gone universal remote does this by rapidly cycling through all the known OFF commands in its infrared database at the press of a button. Bothered by the soap opera that’s blaring at your favorite diner? Point and click and TV-be-gone! Feel like annoying the bunch of people who have stopped on their tracks to watch an ongoing basketball game at an appliance store window? Point and click and TV-be-gone! Oh, and you better be gone as well, before the crowd turns into an angry mob that lunges after you. The TV-B-Gone comes in Asian/American and European flavors, to account for differences in regional remotes. And, according to their tongue-in-cheek website, their units have turned out to be so popular that their entire stock vanished in just two days. Hmmm. Expect a lot of bar fights to erupt because of this.

Be the judge: An Ixus-I Killer?

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I got a chance to play with Olympus' new fashion camera - christened the [mju] Mini Digital Camera. mju fashion camera My first impression was that of a frivolous camera which girlies in minis would be carrying around in the latest weekend rave. Turns out, this Venus from Mt. Olympus had both beauty and brains to offer! 4.0MP is the real vanilla - not one of those interpolated pieces of crap we find here and there. It presents 13 shooting modes made easy to understand to amateur photographers like me (i.e. "Food shots" and "shoot behind glass" modes). Though the super macro mode (wow!) may not be as powerful as my 310Z (muhuahuahua!), it compensates by having manual ISO settings! Now that's something for a fashion camera! The external body has a beautiful metal finish, available in several attractive colors. It claims to be an all-weather camera. This doesn't mean it's waterproof, but the box claims it "resists water from all directions." Two things which I'm iffy about: weird placement of the shoot button as well as only 2x optical zoom. Hmm but come to think about it, the Ixus-I needed feet power to do optical zoom. And guess what? At $220.00, you really can't go wrong for an all-fashion, all-weather camera. Stay tuned for a full review of this device in the upcoming issues of m|ph.

MaPalad's Oktoberfest Twist!

the handsome winston Winston Chiu of Microwarehouse trying to convince everyone to get a T|5 instead of the upcoming Treo Ace. (But seriously, the initial T|5 inventory has already been swarmed) - pic courtesy of MaPalad's Hannibal Geeks have other ways of celebrating Oktoberfest! Instead of the usual overflowing beer, members had their fill of new palmOne products with the launch of the palmOne Tungsten 5 and the SD Wi-Fi Card. Despite the many international forum bashings of the T|5, Winston Chiu of Microwarehouse gave a great presentation on the T|5 as an answer to the growing worldwide demand of flash drives and MP3 players. But the night wasn't just all business - as a MaPalad tradition, limited edition sport bottles, bags and T-shirts were raffled off as prizes and to winners of the "pass the message via IrDA" and "who has the most address book entries" challenges. MaPalad has been around since October 1999 and was founded by fellow editor Jason de Villa. Stay tuned for the full review of the Tungsten T|5 and the SD Wi-Fi card in the upcoming issues of m|ph ! oooh! MaPalad members desperately trying to work their way through the Graffiti contest more fun! Jason de Villa trying to figure out what in the world he's raffling off Click here and here for more pictures of the Grand October meet!

Tungsten T5 is good to go

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palmOne and Microwarehouse today launched two new products and a new marketing campaign during a press presentation at Shangri-la Makati. As expected, palmOne Sales Director for South Asia Peter Mah introduced the Tungsten T5 and the Wi-Fi SD card to the press. The T5 will be available in retail stores beginning tomorrow for P22,900 and the WiFi card for around P8,000 (it will be available in a few weeks). The new marketing campaign is centered on the idea of mobility, symbolized by the word "go" (go connect, go smart, etc.). Yes, we got our grubby little hands on a demo unit and spent some time playing around with it instead of listening to the presentation. Here a brief rundown of what we like and dislike about it: Likes:
  • Massive memory
  • Fast processor
  • Large and bright screen
Dislikes:
  • Plastic body
  • No voice recorder
The lack of Wi-Fi isn't a deal breaker for me, but that's just me. Watch for the full review in the November issue of m|ph.

Eat your heart out, Dick Tracy!

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U-Watch MP3Ok, it's not exactly a video-phone Dick Tracy style, but it does just about everything else: the aigo U-Watch is a USB flash storage system (128MB or 256MB), an MP3 player, and a voice recorder. The USB interface is only 1.1, but the MP3 player has five equalizer presets (Normal, Pop, Rock, Jazz and Classic) and the watch mechanism is made by Citizen. The voice recorder function should come in handly when you're talking to your boss about a raise. Oh, did I mention that it tells time as well? It'll be available next month, with the 128MB version coming in at P7,500 and the 256MB version at P9,000. While it would make a nice Christmas gift for the übergeek, personally I wouldn't be caught dead wearing one. But that's just me.
JMC If you're using a Windows powered Pocket PC Phone or Smartphone, you must check out this program by Jeyo, Inc. Product Description: Jeyo Mobile Companion is an ideal PC partner application for your Windows Mobile Smartphone or Pocket PC Phone Edition device. It allows you to operate your Window Mobile device from a Windows PC through a familiar ease-to-use Outlook-style user interface. It lets you to communicate instantly with hundreds of millions of mobile phone users around the world using SMS directly from your PC, and manage all the important personal data on your Smartphone or Pocket PC phone. With Jeyo Mobile Companion, you can get much more out of your PC and Windows Mobile device In a nutshell, once you connect your PPC Phone or Smartphone to your PC, Jeyo Mobile Companion (JMC for short) will instantly read all of your SMS, contacts and call log and display it on the JMC program, Outlook-style. Within the JMC program, I can create back-ups of my SMS and even check the overall status/shut down programs on my Windows powered phone . The best feature I like about JMC is that it allows me to do real time SMS on my desktop PC while my PPC Phone is connected to it. Whenever I receive an SMS, it will immediately be downloaded to my PC and I can proceed to compose and send a reply thru my PC. Former Mac users like myself will find this feature a boon as it closely resembles the Bluetooth-SMS feature of the Mac. Go download a 14 day trial of Jeyo Mobile Companion at this link, there's also an Outlook plug-in of Jeyo Mobile Companion here for those who want it integrated with Outlook.
Scholars did claim that the Mona Lisa was actually Da Vinci's self-portrait. Well self gratifying piece of work or not, the Mona Lisa ranks as one of the world's Renaissance treasures. Makes you wonder how he actually painted it? A mirror while he brushed up a smile? self portrait Today, self-portraits have gone digital. perhaps more than 50% of camera phone shots taken are self-portraits uploaded in Friendster. Point of fact: what's with the vanity mirror in most camera phones? It's actually pretty useless as a mirror for women to check for warts or other disgusting things in their faces. Yep, engineered in the phone is an accessory which allows us to take better self portraits. Mind you - more important that better voice quality or better tactile feedback .. the market for these vanity pieces are huge that it coerces engineers to add these little mirrors pronto! At the very least, we could smile as mysteriously as Leonardo. The power of Juan Narcissus compels you! (and me, tee hee!)
In case you guys didn't know (cause I sure as hell didn't), Motorola has released their latest LINUX powered smartphone onto the unsuspecting Filipino masses. Ian Garcia of Brightpoint Philippines dropped by my office for an informal meeting and at the same time, gave me a hands on test with the Motorola A768i. This baby has a lot of things going for it, it's small, has Bluetooth, POP3/SMTP mail client, a 65K color display with a resolution of 240 x 320, and that's just the scratching the surface of what this mega smartphone has to offer. I forgot the exact retail price but it's priced below P30,000. Here's a couple of pictures of the Motorola A768i beside the Anextek Pocket PC Phone: Motorola 768i Moto768i

Anextek Pocket PC Phone

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SP-230 "I don't like it" "It has nothing on the iPAQ 6300" That's just a couple of things that I would have said 2 weeks ago if people were to ask me what were my opinions of the Anextek SP-230 Pocket PC Phone. Hinge Media head honcho, Poch Bermudez, was raving to me about how this device was the best and perfect device for him, that's what he said about his past devices like the P800, Treo 600, Nokia 6600 and Motorola MPX 200, which he ended up selling after a few months so forgive me if I take his comments about the Anextek with a grain of salt. But curiousity got to me and I ended up giving the Anextek SP-230 a road test for a day, which resulted in me actually buying the damn thing the next day! So what convinced me to pluck down cash for this baby? Two reasons why I sold my Xda II unit was because of its big size (relatively speaking) and short battery life, the Anextek SP-230 is neither of the 2. While it doesn't have Bluetooth and is 64MB shorter in memory compared to the Xda II, the SP-230's smaller size is a trade off that I can happily live with. My one big regret now is that I sold my Socket SD WiFi card along with my Xda II, the SP-230's SD I/O slot is just aching to have a WiFi card inserted into it! Oh, and lest I forget to mention, the Anextek SP-230's is retailing for P10,000 less than the price of the Xda II. Convinced? I know I am. Watch out for a full review of the Anextek SP-230 in an upcoming issue of m|ph
If you’ve ever water-damaged your digital device, don’t panic. It may still be salvageable. Here’s a case in point… Last August 25, pouring rains covered parts of Metro Manila waist-deep in flood water. I soon faced the horrifying sight of Araneta Avenue corner E. Rodriguez, now literally a shimmering lake. We will swim to the zoo... Since my rusty, decade-old Vitara and I have already been through a lot before, I revved the gas and plowed right through the waters. Bystanders were shaking their heads (“what an idiot
They are one of the more respectable PDA review sites because they give a new meaning to "in-depth" reviews. You can check out the link here in the PDA Buyer's Guide website. "A very nice Palm OS PDA. If you're a T3 user, you probably won't want to run out and upgrade, but if you're using an older, slower or lower resolution Palm, this is a worthy contender. It has a large, high resolution display, a very fast processor and plenty of memory. In addition it has an SD slot for memory and WiFi card expansion, Bluetooth and an MP3 player. Not bad. This is the first PDA with enough memory to hold a decent collection of MP3s, photos, short videos and PDF files without a memory expansion card." (PDA Buyer's Guide) Just for kicks you can also check out Howard's review of the XDA II and my review of the brow-raising Siemens Sx1 in this site. UPDATE: While doing my daily AM web surf, I found out Gizmodo did a similar post on the T|5 review at PDA Buyer's Guide. There's a lesson to be learned somewhere, and this just goes to show that great minds think alike. Tee hee.
Is there really such a thing as the best digital camera in the market? Hold your horses ladies and gents! I write this post in defense of those who are disillussioned by the mantra "great pictures come from good cameras" and to those who are overly depressed by their recent digital camera purchase. I kid you not, that I am no pro. I'm still on that "shutter bug, cam-whore" level where I whip out my point-and-shoot and snap away at anything. But I think I'm going somewhere with this post, as someone who used to paint, direct plays and write music. So bear with me. I believe that there is a huge misconception that better cameras take better pictures. I would like to convince myself that the art of photography is similar to any art, that no pen or canvas can match the creativity of the artist. No camera can be better than the photographer (It's the photographer, not the camera that's overrated). Ken Rockwell says that you can take the same picture given different standards of cameras, whether they be point and shoot or prosumer. The item in question is how easy will it be to take that shot. More expensive and feature packed cameras merely make a phoographer's life easier. It's like using different sizes of brushes to paint a wall. Art? So what is it? (Not the editor). I have always had a small quote beside my bed which reminds me everyday, "All great art is but a vision of creation Near to God and near to nature Remote from worldly wisdom." road less taken If you don't know what I mean, try going out of the city with your camera. It will inspire you. (Picture of the loney bridge taken with my C-310 in the forest trail where I work in Lemery, Batangas.)

Did palmOne blow it with the T5?

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I was taken aback by Palm users’ reactions to palmOne’s newly announced

The unwired, geeky Filipino

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In a lifestyle survey conducted by the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Philippines came out near the bottom in terms of being wired (i.e., access to broadband services), but topped several, more developed Asian countries when it comes to geekiness. “The real gadget addicts are found in the Philippines and Indonesia. Those two countries consistently score top in questions which identify the level of enthusiasm for the latest communications devices and services,

The Tungsten T5 is official

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palmOne finally announced the Tungsten T5 in the US a few hours ago. A little birdy told me that the official announcement for Asia will be on October 8.Tungsten T5
The good: 256MB of memory (160MB functions as a flash drive), faster processor, bigger battery (1300 mAh), no more slider.
The bad: a new connector, no Wi-Fi, no cradle, and it won't ship until November 3.
Fearless forecast: About a gazillion people will bitch about this new model ("Where's the Wi-Fi radio?!? Why, I could get a Dell PPC with the same features for less!!), but palmOne will still sell a ton of these. It's not the perfect PDA, but still a pretty good one.
ASUS WL-330The Gadgeteer has an extensive review of the Asus WL-330 pocket wireless access point. At about half the price of Apple's Airport Express ($70 for the WL-330 vs. $130 for the Airport Express), the WL-330 is a better deal if you only need a small wireless access point (the WL-330 is only a "b" and not a "g" AP) to bring with you when you travel or to provide wireless broadband access at home. Even better news is that Asus has just released a "g" version (the WL-330G) of this pocket access point, at the same price point, so the "b" model reviewed by the Gadgeteer should be even cheaper. Now, off to the Asus store in Megamall to find out if they have this baby in stock! UPDATE (5 October): Someone pointed out that the WL-330 is just an access point while the Airport Express can function as a router. True, so in that sense it's like comparing an apple to an orange (pun intended). Which is why I said that "the WL-330 is a better deal if you only need (emphasis added) a small wireless access point... to bring with you when you travel or to provide wireless broadband access at home." If you travel frequently to places where you have wired broadband access (e.g., hotel rooms) or if you have wired broadband access at home (via cable or DSL) distributed to a couple of computers via a router and just want to add, say, a wireless laptop to the mix, the WL-330 will set you back by only P4,000 (got the price from the Asus store in Megamall this afternoon) vs the P8,000 or so that the Airport Express sells for.

Time to ditch your digital camera?

Yeah, you just blew P25k on your shiny new 1-megapixel camera phone and then you find out that camera phones with 5-megapixel cameras are coming out in December (via engadget via picturephoning.com). If Samsung's 3-megapixel cameraphone is any indication, the camera in this model will be more like a real camera (large lens, optical zoom) and not a toy camera, making it possible for you to finally ditch your digital camera. As for me, if they could build this into a Palm OS PDA, I'd be a happy man.

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