Tech Digest

Palm's colourful Treo 680 smartphone debuts

If the Palm Treo 750v was a bit rich for your tastes, you might be interested in the company's new entry-level model - the Palm Treo 680, which is slimmer than other Treo handsets and also available in a choice of colours.

The Treo 680 is being pitched at the "professional consumer" - which probably means someone who wants the added functionality of a smartphone, but doesn't want to sacrifice the looks. Saying that, it doesn't look much different to the 750v, apart from the colour. The 680 a quand-band phone with 320x320 colour screen, Bluetooth, enhanced sms messaging (you can view as a thread rather than individual messages), 64MB of storage (which can be boosted by card), email, web browsing (via Blazer 4.5), music player, VGA camera, photo album and Documents To Go - so you can view, edit and share Word and Excel documents. The operating system is Palm OS.

It's available in red, orange, white and silver. Or rather will be - Palm isn't being specific about a release date in Europe, but will be clearer towards the end of this year, they assure us.

Find out more

Vodafone offers BlackBerry Pearl on its website

As well as O2, it seems that Vodafone is also offering the BlackBerry Pearl, with pre-orders being taken on the company's website.

Check out our video for a hands-on look at the BlackBerry Pearl. Or if you just want a quick specification, it's got a media player, 1.3 megapixel camera, quad-band GSM/GPRS reception, Bluetooth and  push email. The QWERTY keyboard features the SureType prediction system, and there's a trackball control in place of BlackBerry's usual jogwheel.

Price is dependent on contract, ranging from free to £250. No shipping dater as yet.

Vodafone website

Via The Register

HP launches new iPAQ rx5000 series Travel Companion, rw6815 Personal Messenger and rx4000 Mobile Media Companion

  HP has three new pocket PCs on the market - the iPAQ rx5000 series Travel Companion, rw6815 Personal Messenger and rx4000 Mobile Media Companion - all equipped with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system and Bluetooth.

The iPAQ rx5000 series Travel Companion offers everything you'd expect from a high-end satellite navigation system - SiRF Star III GPS receiver, TomTom Navigator 6 navigation software and complete regional or Maps of Western Europe pre-installed on internal 1GB/2GB Flash memory. Theres also a multi-lingual interface offering over 30 different language options, route choice based on quickest, shortest, avoid toll roads, on bicycle, or as a pedestrian, itinerary planning (multiple destinations) and the option of real-time traffic information, safety camera location and places of interest. And of course, it's a handheld PC with the Office software, mobile entertainment and integrated Wi-Fi.

The iPAQ rw6815 Personal Messenger sells itself on connectivity, with Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and email synchronising automatically over your mobile phone network using Direct Push Technology. You can also listen to music, as well as viewing videos and photos - and taking snaps with the built-in Photosmart camera. The iPAQ rx4000 Mobile Media Companion features over 1GB of storage for your music and video files with an SD slot to boost further or transfer files. There's also Photosmart Mobile software to convert your handheld into a digital photo album with wide-viewing angle and Skype support.

All devices will be in the shops by the end of October - the iPAQ rx5000 will retail for between £299 - £349 (depending on model), the rw6815 will sell for £369.99 and the iPAQ rx4000 will be available from £199.99.

HP website

FreeB TV - ROK offers free mobile TV over GPRS

Not many companies seem as charitable as ROK these days. Not content with offering free VoIP calling via Bluetooth for mobile phones, it's now offering free mobile TV over GPRS (2.5G) under the name of FreeB TV in both the US and the UK.

The service is currently available with 14 handsets (check website for list) and offers 4 channels of content - Classic Cartoons, Classic Movies, Vintage Conedy and Extreme Sports, with a YOU-MADE-IT channel of users' funny clips to follow. If you want to try it, visit the website, enter a few details and you'll get a WAP link sent to your handset to access the service.

Obviously the service is free, but the data charges still apply. But if you have a bit of spare data and a bit of spare time, it's cfertainly worth a look.

FreeB TV website

Review: Blackberry Pearl

The Propaganda

The Blackberry Pearl is RIM's attempt to "get Blackberry out of the boardroom". They've made themselves indispensable to Serious Business People around the world, but now they're after said Serious People's kids. Or at least their less responsible, black-sheep-in-the-family, we're-not-sure-he'll-ever-settle-down, younger brother.

They're also hoping that people will now truly ditch the mobile phone they've been carrying around in addition to their emailing device, as they think they've cracked the perfect combination of data and phone functionality. But then, doesn't everybody?

The Good

Out of the box, the Blackberry Pearl emerges all shiny and new. I have to admit, if I didn't know about the phones magical abilities, I would be tempted to buy it on looks alone. This is an impressive feat bearing in mind the quality of the competition out there. I'm getting bored of saying it, but it really does have a 'piano black' finish which stays that way, despite being chucked in my bag to wrestle against keys, sand and other miscellany. The black is set off with chrome on the sides, and surrounding the camera. It's pretty. The best bit about it is the ball or 'pearl' you use for scrolling, in the centre under the screen. It's a great way of scrolling through the extensive menu, since it works in the same way to the ball in a mouse, not constrained to moving just left to right and up and down. It also lights up with a kind of purplish glow when you start using it. 

The email system itself is really easy to set-up, and is designed with consumers in mind, rather than those who have an IT guy and an Exchange server. It's simply a case of getting on the Blackberry website from your PC entering your email address and password, and you're done. There's no entering of smtp addresses, finding well hid settings or anything that you could mess up.  The only sticking point is that if you want Hotmail to deliver, you need to pay MSN for 'premium access', but that's an MSN problem rather than RIM's.

The performance of the Pearl could be battery sapping. After all, it's got a great screen that adjusts it's brightness according to your surroundings, Push email, and more backlighting than you can shake a stick at. In fact, I got about 3 days fairly typical use from a single charge.

In an attempt to catch up with other phone manufacturers, RIM have added a media player for music, photos and videos. To support this, they've included a MicroSD slot, and bundle a card with it, although they're not clear on what size it will be at the moment. They've also included headphones for your media.

The Bad

Blackberry are really pushing the inclusion of a camera on this one, but at 1.3 megapixels it doesn't stand up against the competition. It's the size now seen on budget phones, and those where the camera isn't anything more than a quick addition when needs must. Given Blackberry's excitement about it being there, you'd have thought they'd have got a better one. They've also put the MicroSD card under the SIM, which is a personal hate. It makes it really tricky to get to, and risks damaging the SIM card.

There are also certain things seen on your average mobile which you'll miss. There's no way of instantly getting into a new SMS message, or your contacts - all of these are done through the main menu. And to put that in perspective, the main menu has 33 different icons to navigate through, although you can move the order they appear in. There are 5 icons on the home screen, but they seem bizarre choices, including Enterprise Activation and Yahoo Messenger. There are two buttons either side of the handset which you can personalise, but there doesn't seem to be a way of personalising the home screen. [Update: you can move the icons by rearranging the main menu, which in turn changes the home screen icon order].

The keypad itself is a full QWERTY keypad, but has two letters to each button. And unlike other models, it's not a case of hitting each side of the key to get the different letter. So, this gives you a combination of predictive text and normal typing, where you've got to keep an eye on what you're being predicted to avoid having to go back and do it all again. I found it really difficult to get used to, as the predictive element fooled my brain into thinking that the keypad would be set up like a normal phone. I would have found it quicker and easier if it had I think. 

Another bone of contention is the lack of scroll wheel, which many Blackberry addicts will no doubt lament. Whilst the Pearl is attractive, and good for skipping about the screen, it's just not as quick when you want to go through emails or scan to the bottom of a document. For some reason, the test model I had would plonk me in the middle of yesterday's messages when I entered the email inbox, which meant I had about 40 emails to get through before I could see my new ones. It only started doing this after a few days, so it might just be a bug in an early model. 

There is no 3G on this model, which Blackberry put down to an issue of space. This does mean that web pages are slow to download, and in addition, certain pages are completely useless to you. The squares of images that make up a streetmap are put one on top of each other, making it impossible to see where the connections are.

Geek Sheet

Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.97 x .57 inches

Weight: 3.1 oz

Screen: 65,000 colors, 240 x 260 pixel color display

Camera: 1.3MP camera with flash

Memory: 64 MB flash memory with Micro SD slot

Network: Quad-Band: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks

In our opinion

Despite it's faults, the Blackberry Pearl is tempting. Whether it'll get those elusive consumers emailing on the move I suspect will depend largely on the packages carriers put together - there's still a fear held by many people that they will somehow end up with an enormous phone bill come the end of the month if they use data services.

T-Mobile offers TrafficTV real-time traffic information to BlackBerry users

Stuck in a jam? Not sure if your route is going to be congested? You can now find out for sure by checking your BlackBerry, with T-Mobile offering the TrafficTV mobile application exclusively on those devices.

TrafficTV combines Trafficmaster Traffic information with live CCTV pictures. Install it on your BlackBerry for a full interactive map of the UK and live 24 x 7 access to Trafficmaster’ traffic information and over 500 CCTV pictures. Trafficmaster has sensors on over 8,000 miles of motorway and trunk roads in the UK, flagging up delays as they happen. And if you want to see it for yourself, you can reference CCTV camera images in real time.

Contact T-Mobile for exact costs, which they claim start from around 10p per day.

T-Mobile website

Palm (finally) launches the Treo 750v

Palm has today officially launched the long awaited Treo 750v, together with Vodafone and Microsoft. Available throughout Europe from the end of October, the 750v will be available exclusively from Vodafone for at least 3 months. It's the first Palm device to be designed with Europe in mind, hence the lopping off of the enormous aerial found on previous Treo devices. Whilst the previous Treo models were hugely popular in the US, the same pick-up has yet to be seen over here.

Using the latest Windows Mobile OS, the Treo 750v features a touch screen as well as a full QWERTY keyboard. The Vodafone connection takes advantage of their 3G network, formatting web pages to fit the 240x240 screen. Other features include a miniSD card slot, 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and the Windows Media Player.

Cost wise, Vodafone are offering it on certain tariffs for free, whilst others will have to pay £150. Email packages start at £10 a month, to prevent nasty surprises at the end of the month.  So far, there are no details about which carriers will be picking it up from January onwards.

Check out the video here.

One Minute Review: Palm Treo 750v

Palm launched their latest Treo 750v today, which is their first Windows based device available in Europe. It's also heavily Vodafone friendly as they've got exclusivity for at least 3 months. It'll be available from the end of October, although you can preorder now.

HTC unveils P3600, P3300 PDAs and S620, S310 smartphones

HTC has unveiled four new devices today - the S620 slim smartphone, the S310 candy bar-style smartphone, the P3300 navigation PDA and the P3600 HSDPA-ready PDA. All devices will be available under the HTC brand as well as in customised versions for operator partners - with the P3300 already snapped up by T-Mobile for launch as the MDA Compact III.

The HTC S620 (pictured) is a slimline smartphone at just 12.8mm thin and weighing 130g with battery. It's the first device to feature HTC’s JOGGR touch sensitive navigation bar, which offers quick access to applications including Outlook Mobile (with push email), Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile and a PDF viewer. The quand band phone also features a 2.4-inch, colour, landscape screen, a fully integrated QWERY keyboard, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. it should be in Europe from October.

The HTC S310 is a candy bar-style smartphone featuring Windows Mobile 5.0. More comsumer-friendly, this quad band device will be available in a range of colours later this month.

The P3300 (pictured) is HTC’s first dedicated navigation PDA with built-in GPS and features the latest TomTom software, Navigator 6. Both 2D and 3D maps are claimed to be easy to install and view using HTC’s RollRTM (Trackball and Track Wheel) and theoptimised 2.8-inch colour screen. Retailing from October 2006, it will be available with a 'taster pack' of regional maps or as a full version pre-loaded with a complete set of maps for Western Europe.

The P3600 is billed as HTC’s next generation PDA. Running with Windows Mobile 5.0, it also features 3G connectivity and is HSDPA-ready. There's also a music player and two megapixel camera. Available in a black or white glossy finish, the HTC P3600 will be available across Europe later this month.

HTC website www.htc.com

Virgin's Mobile TV unveiled for October launch

Virgin has unveiled its Mobile TV service, with the first broadcast set to commence from October 1st, coinciding with a huge advertising blitz, fronted by Pamela Anderson.

The service, which uses the DAB IP-based BT Movio platform, will offer four TV channels - BBC one, ITV1, Channel 4 and E4, along with 50 digital radio stations, 'red-button' interactivity and a seven-day electronic programme guide (EPG). Channel 4 will initially broadcast Channel 4 Short Cuts, a made-for-mobile TV channel, with a full Channel 4 simulcast to following at a later date. That's not the only limitation - some films, sports broadcasts and US shows will also be removed from broadcast, while the BBC's participation is on a 12-month trial basis.

Virgin is offering the service via the Lobster 700, its first Windows-based smartphone. If you sign up to a contract of £25 per month or more, you get the handset and the TV service for free for the life of your contract. You can also take the Lobster on pre-pay for £199, with the service free for 3 months, followed by a £5 a month charge.

Virgin Mobile