The New Android-Powered Motorola CLIQ

Motorola has finally released its first Android-powered smartphone, the CLIQ. It provides everything you could possibly want or need in a phone. From photo-sharing sites to Web-based e-mail to TeleNav-powered voice-enabled turn-by-turn directions, the Motorola CLIQ has it all.

First lets discuss the most noticeable details, the CLIQ’s appearance and design. Honestly, the phone is a bit bulky, measuring 4.5 x 2.3 x 0.6 inches and weighing in at 5.7 ounces. It features a glass front, surrounded by black plastic and a darkened chrome accent around the smooth sides. The touch response on the brightly lit, 3.1-inch, 320 x 480-pixel touch screen is quite impressive. Although it’s screen is slightly smaller than the T-Mobile G1 and the myTouch 3G, the CLIQ’s impressive touch response definitely makes it stand out. The four-row QWERTY keyboard is accurate, quiet, and extremely comfortable to use, making texting and e-mailing a breeze. Overall, if you can handle the CLIQ’s bulk, you’ll have no other complaints about the appearance or design.

Now one side of the CLIQ that lots of people are going to love is its outstanding ability to integrate messaging and social networking. It is really the most customizable Android phone currently available on the market. Motorola offers their MotoBlur service that has the ability to integrate and incorporate all of your online communications in one spot. Whether it’s Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail, MotoBlur bring together all the updates, contacts, and information into one easy location. There are five home screen panels on the CLIQ that handle your personal status updates, text messages and e-mails, your contacts recently uploaded photos and status updates, all events and changed contact information, and so much more. Now how much more ease with your social networking could you want from your phone?

The specs on the CLIQ were fairly impressive as well. It features a 528 Mhz Qualcomm MSM7201A processor with 256MB of RAM and 256MB of internal storage. It could be a little bit faster, but for most situations this handles things just fine. The smartphone features TeleNav-powered voice-enabled turn-by-turn directions, GoogleMaps with Street View, and Google Latitude for locating your friends. The CLIQ also includes impressive video recording and playback and a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus.

Considering all the facts, if you are a social networking addict or just a person looking for a fast reliable smartphone, the Motorola CLIQ could definitely be the answer for you.

inPulse Smartwatch for BlackBerry Smartphones

Its a watch and may be one of the coolest BlackBerry accessories around. Its not a BlackBerry on your wrist, rather its a watch which connects to your BlackBerry via Bluetooth to alert you to emails, SMS messages, and calls. This watch isn't made by RIM (the makers of BlackBerry) and its not designed to operate like a phone, but it is handy for when you're walking down the street and don't hear or can't reach your phone, you can get an update right to your wrist.

When you get an incoming phone call, the watch lets you know who's calling. So you can decide if you want to answer without even picking up your phone. It also has a vibrate option on the watch so even if you're busy or can't hear your phone, you won't miss your call.

If you're waiting for an email or SMS message, your BlackBerry will automatically push the messages to your inPulse watch, so even if you're in a meeting you won't have to keep picking up your phone to check to see if you've received what you're waiting for.





Some specs:
* 1.3" full color organic light-emitting-diode (OLED) display
* Bluetooth® v2.0+EDR
* 150 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery
* Glass lens and full metal body
* 22mm interchangeable wrist band
* Vibrating motor
* Micro-USB port (for charging)
* Over-the-air firmware updates
* Dimensions: 51mm height x 38mm width x 12mm depth

According to the inPulse website here are a few more need-to-know facts about the inPulse:

*inPulse has a rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery inside. Under normal use, i.e. paired with a BlackBerry, receiving and displaying 20-30 updates per day, the battery should last approximately 4 days. Since inPulse is highly configurable, the battery life will vary from user to user

*inPulse charges via a built-in micro-USB jack. If you have a fairly new BlackBerry smartphone (such as a BlackBerry Storm, Tour, 8520, 8900 or Bold 9700) then inPulse can be charged using the same charger as your BlackBerry. A micro-USB cable is also included. Charging is also very quick and usually takes less than 30 minutes.


While you cannot actually send messages or make calls with the device, it still seems like a fairly handy device to have. It will be available February 2010 and will retail for $149, you can pre-order at the inPulse site. It works with every BlackBerry with the OS 4.3 and above. It may not be a necessary gadget, but it is pretty cool for those on the go.

Verizon's Droid, the first real threat to the iPhone?

There's been a lot of buzz this week because over the weekend Verizon starting airing commercials about its newest phone, Droid. The commercials are specifically targeting the iPhone and what the iPhone doesn't do. For the first time, there seems to be a real contender to knock iPhone out of the #1 position.



The official release date for Droid hasn't been released, all we know at this point in that it will be sometime in November and exclusively with Verizon. The guys over at Boy Genius Report have gotten their hands on one and as of right now, are the only glimpse the world has at the newest smartphone to hit the market.

What kind of features can we expect to see? According to the guys at BGR:

*Its running Android 2.0 (more about the Android OS)

*Its thin, a bit thicker than the iPhone

*Touchscreen along with a full keyboard

*Has a full slide out QWERTY keyboard, not spring-loaded

*Its fastest Android phone they've ever used

According to the commercial, droiddoes.com and some leaked information floating around the web some more features include:

*5-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus and video recorder

*fully customizable

*3.7-inch capacitive display (854 by 480 pixels resolution)

*GPS

*Wi-Fi

*256MB of RAM and 512MB of internal memory (with support for microSD memory cards up to 16MB)


It won't be known until it hits the market whether or not it will be the real deal and cut into iPhones market. Specifically with the apps, but the buzz around the blogosphere is that the Droid is the real deal and a true competitor in the smartphone market.

Review of the Blackberry Storm 2

People are finally getting their hands on the much-talked about, highly anticipated Blackberry Storm 2 and the reviews are flooding in. As a matter of fact, people were talking about it before the original storm was even released to customers. So, does it stand up to the hype? Let's take a look.

According to Crackberry.com, the Storm 2 is definitely an improvement over the first model, with lots of additions and an overall better performance, but it doesn't make the first one obsolete. In other words, if you're already a Storm owner, and you don't have any major issues with your phone, you are probably better off sticking to what you know. On the other hand, the addition of Wi-Fi could make or break your decision.

But Wi-Fi isn't the only improvement over the original model. There are also any number of other improvements worth mentioning, including: enhanced SurePress Technology, overall device performance, JavaScript is now on by default, 256 MB of Memory (compared to 128 MB), 2GB of onboard media memory (compared to 1GB), a sleeker design with tinted chrome ring, integrated touch navigation keys, Blackberry Handheld Software version 5.0, and internet browsing enhancements such as fast page loading.

Below, you'll find a list of expanded Blackberry Storm 2 Specifications:

• Size - 112.5 mm x 62 mm x 13.9 mm
• Weight - 5.65 ounces
• Memory - 256 MB Flash memory 2GB eMMC
• Expandable Memory - MicroSD located under battery door cover (up to 16GB)
• Battery - 1400 mAhr removable/rechargeable cryptographic Lithium cell
• Battery Life - 5-6 hours of talk time
• Display - High-resolution 480 X 360 pixel color display 3.25 inch
• Camera - 3.2 MP camera, flash, auto focus, image stabilization, 2X digital zoom
• GPS - Integrated GPS with A-GPS
• Wi-Fi - 802.11 b/g enabled
• Media Player - BlackBerry Media Player
• Video Format Support - MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
• Audio Format Support - MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA,WMA ProPlus
• Headset - 3.5mm stereo headset capable
• Network - QuadBand: 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks; Single-Band: 2100 MHz UMTS/HSPA networks; Dual-Band: 800/1900 MHz CDMA/EVDO Rev A network

For a more expanded, in-depth review of the Blackberry Storm 2, visit Crackberry.com.

LG GD910 Watch Phone

I’m sure that James Bond and LG would be best friends if he could see what LG is cranking out now. The new LG GD910 Watchphone, is a touch screen watch, that allows you to make calls, text message, listen to music, send pictures, and tell time! When I saw this I was amazed. The tech world has been waiting for something like this to come out. We are seeing more and more of these “sci-fi” gadgets coming out recently. The GD910 is a touch screen phone that is Bluetooth enabled. It has a small camera on the top right hand corner that will allow you to take pictures and also will allow you to video chat with other people who own the watch. Also has a voice recognition system, which allows you to control most of the phones main functions like dialing, and reading messages easier. Texting will be done the same way as you do on a T9 keypad. The screen is 1.43 inches diagonally, which made me skeptical about dialing the phone, but then I saw a video of the phone being used and it seems to be very responsive, and easy to use. The phone is going to be available late this year, only in Europe. There are no plans for LG to release the phone in the US, just yet.

I am really excited to see how this watch is going to perform in everyday use. Even though I am not a “watch wearing” kind of person, its still going to be very interesting to see how this is going to set the standards for new mobile products. I was very surprised when I found out that LG was going to be the manufacturer for the phone. I was expecting someone like Apple, or maybe Samsung to be the ones to come out with the idea. I knew that something like this was eventually going to happen, I just didn’t know when. And I am very surprised that it came this early. Now we will probably be seeing some on screen advertisement with James Bond and LG.