Now this is what I would call a freakin’ cool gadget.

The Bluetooth PowBOX is a portable music player that has Bluetooth wireless connectivity built-in (hence the name, duh!) which is not only good for wireless data transfers, but the Bluetooth PowBOX can also be paired to a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone so it can double as a wireless headset. The best thing I like about the PowBOX is that it would display the name of whoever’s calling you on its LCD screen (assuming the name of the caller is in your phone’s address book). Oh, and you can even dial a number from the PowBOX unit itself without having the need to pull out your mobile phone.

The Bluetooth PowBOX Portable Wireless Communication Device will be available at your suking tech tindahan by next week at a price of P12,990.

More info about the Bluetooth PowBOX can be found at iTech’s website

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.

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:

“I don’t like it”
“It has nothing on the iPAQ 6300″
(more…)

But for the sake of being different, I decided to look for a different kind of launcher for my Palm and my searches led me to this piece of software called Appshelf, and let me tell you, I am *NOT* disappointed. Appshelf is developed by H. Imazeki, a Japanese who is well known in the Palm software market, his other works include Code Diver and McFile. Since this is a Japanese product, it has been optimized for use with Clie handhelds, but it works just as well on any other Palm powered device, I’ve already tried Appshelf on a Tungsten C and it works perfectly.

Here’s a screenshot of my Palm running Appshelf, isn’t it purdy?

You can download a demo or purchase a full version of Appshelf here

But that was then……..

Nokia has recently released an updated version of the N-GAGE called the N-GAGE QD, it’s smaller, cuter and doesn’t have the nasty “side talking” feature of the firt N-GAGE. “But it’s still an N-GAGE so I bet it still sucks” or so I thought, after using an N-GAGE QD for a few days, I’m actually contemplating in buying my own N-GAGE QD game deck. So what’s so good about the N-GAGE QD? Sorry, can’t talk about it right now, my The SIMS: Bustin’ Out character is bugging me to feed him and he needs to take a bath, he’s starting to smell.

Thanks to Nokia Philippines and fellow m|ph editor Jayvee for dragging his ass all the way from the provinces (Alabang) to the Nokia office to pick up the loaner units and games.

There are a lot of things to like about the Archos AV400 it sports an uber cool industrial design, has a very nice TFT LCD screen, has the ability to record video from any analogue and digital source like TVs, Video cameras and VHS/Betamax players, and can double as an MP3/WMA music player. But the Archos AV400 is significantly bigger and heavier than an iPod which can be a major turn off to people who are peculiar about weight and portability.

Is the Archos AV400 good enough to convince a portable video player skeptic like me that it’s concept is viable? The jury is still out. Watch out for my review of the Archos AV400 in the upcoming issue of m|ph magazine.

In the mean time, I’ll be sticking with my Windows XP Pro powered laptop. Tablet PCs are just soooooo not there yet.

In the mean time, I’ll be sticking with my Windows XP Pro powered laptop. Tablet PCs are just soooooo not there yet