Smartphones Can Help with Black Friday Shopping

Smartphones have turned into devices that can help individuals with almost every aspect of their lives, and a new survey shows that they will even have an effect on the way that users do their holiday shopping this year.

According to the newest study from market researcher IDC, mobile devices are going to have a very large impact on the holiday shopping habits of American consumers. The survey was conducted with more than 1,000 consumers in September. It showed that customers who use a mobile device for shopping assistance will have a “greater advantage as they engage retailers.”

More than one-third of individuals who were surveyed said that they planned to improve the efficiency and ease of their shopping experience by utilizing their smartphones. They will be able to use their mobile device to search different stores' “price and product information” and also to search for “merchandise availability.” This will help to cut down a lot on stress and wasted time. Of those surveyed that said they plan on using the smartphone, 45 percent said that they would use their mobile device to compare the pricing of certain products to other stores' prices in the area, and 32 percent said that they will be using their phones to browse reviews of certain products that they are interested in.

It has been predicted that the holiday shopping season this year will generate somewhere around $447 billion in revenues. Of the $447 billion, IDC predicts that $127 billion in revenue will be spent by shoppers utilizing their mobile phones to enhance their shopping experience. One thing that is important to note is that these figures do not mean that shoppers are spending cash and purchasing items through their smartphone. IDC says that it simply means that these shoppers will be using their smartphones to help them to ease the stress of holiday shopping and to assist them with their buying decisions.

Now as amazing as these developments may sound to a consumer, it is not necessarily the best news for all retailers. IDC has said that “these new behaviors will exert pressures that weaken the store's immediate influence on purchase decisions at the shelf.” This is a very true thought that I’m sure has many retailers nervous. IDC continued discussing the topic saying that only those retailers that have “superior mobile and social media commerce strategies in place will have a decided advantage."

IDC’s study followed the study conducted by Yahoo that claimed that two-thirds of individuals with a mobile phone will be utilizing it this year while they are doing their holiday shopping. The Yahoo survey also discovered that the average American consumer will be spending close to $900 during the holiday shopping season this year.

These numbers that have been released by IDC and Yahoo are incredible. Mobile devices are increasingly becoming a very essential tool in many individuals' lives. Although it may not be the ideal thing for retailers, utilizing your smartphone to check pricing, availability, and quality of products is smart. It will help shoppers to find the best deals and best products available this holiday season. I know that I will definitely be utilizing these mobile benefits while I’m out doing my shopping. If you’re looking to ease some of the shopping stress of the holiday season, maybe you don’t need to look any further than your smartphone.

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New Sniper Stand Makes Smartphone Entertainment Hands-Free

These days, smartphones offer users endless entertainment options. We can view photos, videos, and even full movies and TV shows. The issue is that it can get really annoying to hold your smartphone in your hand the whole time. Well now you no longer have to worry about that. The new Sniper Stand is exactly what you need if you utilize your phone for entertainment purposes.

The Sniper Stand is simply a small plastic disk that has two slits that intersect at a right angle. It has an adhesive on the back that is extremely strong while still being removable. All you have to do is stick the Sniper Stand on the back of your phone, stick a credit card in the slits of the stand, and your smartphone is ready to stand hands-free and cater to your entertainment needs.

Now the Sniper Stand is not yet in production, but there are a limited number of sample prototypes. They are available in black from the Sniper Stand Web site for $9.99 including shipping.

If you’re looking for a new and up-to-date smartphone, check out the Motorola Droid X or the HTC EVO 4G.

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First LG Phone for T-Mobile

On June 30TH, LG introduced their first ever T-mobile phone, the LG Sentio. For being LG’s first phone with T-mobile, you would most likely expect something fabulous and show stopping but don’t exactly hold your breath. The Sentio is nothing more then an average, middle of the road type of phone. It does however have a nice smooth and sleek design, and its multimedia features work fairly well. Perhaps the most attractive part of the phone is that it is very affordable.

The Sentio has an incredible slim and stylish design and is quite compact. It is 4.2 inches long and 2.1 inches thick. It is one of the thinnest phones yet to hit the market at only 1.5 inches thick, and its one of the lightest as well weighing in at 3.3 ounces. Although the Sentio is not covered in steel or glass like most other high-end touchscreen phones, it is wrapped in a lovely soft slate gray plastic that grips well. Its smooth corners and edges add to the overall feel of the phone.

The front of the phone features a beautiful 3.0-inch touch-screen display. The Sentio has a resistive screen so it's not quite as responsive as the regular touchscreen that is used on more advanced touchscreen phones such as the iPhone. You have to push a little harder on the screen then you should have to in order to get results from the Sentio. One nice feature the phone possesses is its vibration feedback capability. Vibration Feedback is when there is a slight vibration each time you touch the screen, this allows you to feel the responsiveness. You are given the ability to adjust the type and intensity of the vibration.

You can customize the Sentio's home screen with widgets or application shortcuts. By merely tapping on the arrow on the right side of the screen, you can drag and drop widgets from the slide-out menu to the home screen. You can make any function of the phone into a widget shortcut icon. At the bottom row of the home screen are four additional shortcuts to the phone dialer, the contacts list, the Web browser, and the main menu.

In order to dial a number to make a phone call, you must use a virtual number keypad who’s icon is located at the bottom of the home screen. When you touch the icon your usual phone keypad will appear. The keys are large, and the number input area is quite roomy as well. As far as texting goes, you can stick with T9 predictive text on the nine-key keypad, or you can rotate the phone ninety degrees to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard is spacious enough and is fairly easy to use. On the downside, the text input area is quite small making it somewhat hard to read your whole message as you type.

Underneath the 3-inch touch screen are three real non-touch screen buttons: Send, Back, and the End/Power key. All three keys have a nice appearance and are easy to press. Located on the left side of the phone are the volume button, the task menu key, and the headset/charger jack. Along the right side of the phone is the camera key, and the Sentio’s 3.0-megapixel lens is placed on the back. The camera is okay, but it certainly isn’t above average or anything. A screen lock key is located on the top of the phone and placed conveniently behind the battery cover is a microSD card slot.

The LG Sentio's phone book has the ability to hold 1,000 contacts with room in each entry for five numbers, three e-mail addresses, three instant-messenger IDs, a Web address, a company name, three street addresses, a birthday, an anniversary date, and a memo. Its standard features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, an alarm clock, a calendar, a notepad, a world clock, a tasks list, a calculator, a stopwatch, a unit converter, and a tip calculator. You also get voice command, instant messenger, e-mail, a HTML Web browser, Bluetooth, and GPS with Telenav Navigator support. For social networking fans, LG includes Social Buzz, an app for managing your various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, on the Sentio.

Overall the Sentio has good call quality, posses the support for 7.2Mbps 3G networks, and has a rated battery life of 6 hours talk time and 13 days standby time. For the most part the Sentio is a fairly decent phone for its price of $69.99 with new two-year contract with T-Mobile.

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The Motorola Droid X from Verizon

Verizon’s newest smartphone, the Motorola Droid X, can be described simply as fantastic. It is one of few phones to run Adobe Flash and has everything anyone could possibly need or want from their phone.

In terms of surface space, the Droid X is the largest phone that is currently available in the United States. It measures 5 x 2.6 x 0.4 (HWD). It’s 4.3-inch screen features 854 x 480 resolution. Below the screen are four hardware buttons.

Obviously, like most smartphones available these days, the Droid X features a touch keyboard. I personally find that touch keyboards are very difficult to get used to, but with as big as the Droid X’s screen is, this is one of the easiest touch keyboards to utilize. Your typing experience is enhanced by the Swype text-entry mode that allows you to quickly write words without even picking up your finger.

Call quality on the Droid X is excellent. Motorola designed the Droid X with three different microphones, two of which are utilized for noise cancellation. Reception is also great.

When it comes to downloading data, the Droid X uses Verizon’s EV-DO Rev A network. This means that you should be very satisfied with the downloading speed. It does cost an extra $20 a month to make your phone a Wi-Fi hotspot, but that’s expected with phones like the X.

The battery on the Droid X is pretty good. In preliminary testing, the battery has shown to have about 8 hours of continuous talk time. Due to the large screen, the X does use up a lot of battery life. It will most likely need to be charged every night, but with all of the features that the X has the battery life isn’t really a deal breaker in my opinion. There will be a 1930 mAh extended battery that will be offered as an add on accessory for an extended battery life.

The X runs on the Android 2.1 OS with Motorola’s MotoBlur extensions. There is a single interface that allows users to sign into many different accounts including: Google, Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Microsoft Exchange, Twitter, Myspace, and various mail and photo sharing services. Blur’s inbox treats any Facebook or Myspace messages and Twitter DMs simply as regular emails. The Droid X’s 1-GHz TI OMAP 3630 processor makes the smartphone incredibly fast. It beats out every other Android phone available in performance ratings.

The Droid X works great for music purposes. It plays AAC, MP3, WMA, and WAV music files. It has 8GB of built-in memory and comes standard with a 16GB microSD card. This allows for plenty of room for media storage. There is also an FM radio. The X features an 8-megapixel camera with built-in flash. It takes really great pictures. The Droid captures 720p video at 24 frames per second. Its also fantastic for watching videos.

Overall, the Droid X is a wonderful smartphone with every feature you could ever want. The phone isn’t exactly for everyone due to the fact that it is very large, but when considering performance, the X is great. It will go on sale July 15th for $199.99 with a two year contract and $100 mail-in rebate.

Click here to check out one of the Droid X's predecessors, the HTC Droid Eris.

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Could Cell Phones Be Killing Off Bees?

Researchers in India are concerned that cell phones might possibly be assisting in the decline of the honeybee population all across the world. Due to these concerns, researchers at the Punjab University in Chandigarh decided to investigate whether or not these claims had any basis.

Over the past years, many different countries have seen an undeniable decline in their bee populations. Now many could say that there are a variety of natural causes for this decrease such as climate change, pesticides, and viruses. Despite these possible natural causes, Indian researchers felt that cell phones might also be a plausible culprit. They decided to perform a controlled experiment to explore the possibilities of cell phone interference with the life process of the honeybees.

For the experiment, they had three separate bee hives. One hive had several cell phones placed around it, another had several fake cell phones surrounding it, and the final hive had nothing around it. The real cell phones placed around one of the three bee hives were GSM 900MHz. “The exposure given was 15 minutes twice a day during peak bee activity.”

At the end of three months, the researchers were able to observe some very interesting results. The hive that was surrounded by the real cell phones suffered a significant decline in population. The queen bee of the hive surrounded by cell phones laid less than half of the eggs that the queen bees of the hives that had the fake cell phones or nothing around them. There was also no pollen or honey to be found in the hive that had been surrounded by cell phones.

The researchers that conducted the experiment, Ved Parkash Sharma and Neelima Kumar, stated that they chose to conduct the experiment because there was a growing amount of evidence that electromagnetic fields are to blame for the decline in the bee population. They are afraid that all the radiation from cell phones might possibly be messing with bees’ ability to navigate their way back to the hive.

Certainly more experiments will need to be conducted, but I feel that this information is quite interesting. It definitely seems that cell phone radiation could possibly be killing off honeybees. Hopefully after some more research, a conclusion will be reached as to whether or not cell phones are at least partly the reason for the decrease in the bee population across the world.

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Why Do Cell Phone Conversations Annoy Us Sometimes? Scientists Might Know the Answer…

So scientists think that they have now discovered why you might get completely annoyed when you overhear someone’s cell phone conversation. Scientists from Cornell University say that it takes more concentration and attention to listen to half of a conversation instead of just overhearing two people talking.

Lauren Emberson, a co-author of the study that is set to be published in the Psychological Science magazine, says, “We have less control to move away our attention from half a conversation (or halfalogue) than when listening to a dialogue…Since halfalogues really are more distracting and you can't tune them out, this could explain why people are irritated.”

It was recorded this year that the amount of minutes that Americans spend talking on their cell phones has increased over ninefold since 2000. Last year Americans spent over 2.3 trillion minutes talking on their cell phones.

According to the U.N. agency, the International Telecommunications Union, there are over 4.6 billion cell phone subscribers throughout the world. This is equivalent to about two-thirds of the world’s population. This means that there are very few corners of the world that aren’t plagued by the chatter of cell phone users.

China and India lead the polls in terms of the number of cell phone users that they have. China has 634 million users, India has 545 million, and the United States has 270 million.

Emberson says that the reason that people get so annoyed with cell phone conversations is because they try to make sense of little snippets of the conversation and then predict what the speaker will most likely say next. She states, "When you hear half of a conversation, you get less information and you can't predict as well…it requires more attention."

All of the information that Emberson and her co-author and fellow researcher Michael Goldstein collected was based off of a study that they conducted with 41 college students. They had them perform different concentration exercises while hearing either one or both parties who were having a conversation on their cell phone.

After the experiment was conducted, it was concluded that students made more errors when they only heard one side of a conversation. Emberson says that this shows how overhearing a cell phone conversation can cause disruption to our every day tasks and, that includes driving. She states, "These results suggest that a driver's attention can be impaired by a passenger's cell phone conversation."

I felt that this study that was conducted was extremely interesting. Now I have a better understanding of why I get annoyed when people around me are on their cell phones sometimes. When I really think about it, it is because I’m trying to guess what the person on the other end of the conversation is saying, and I’m attempting to predict what the speaker will say next. The only thing that the study didn’t come up with was a solution to tune the halfalogue out. So I guess for now we will all have to continue to be annoyed by cell phone conversation and do our best not to be too annoyed.

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Voice Navigation with Bing Maps

Microsoft has recently announced that they have just added voice navigation to their Bing maps for Windows Mobile 6.x phones. This feature allows for turn-by-turn, voice-enables directions.

The company stated that Bing directions will have a new Navigate button that will calculate routes for users and guide the user through the entirety of the drive. It will also offer users the option of picking the fastest or shortest route, while still taking into consideration traffic issues and toll roads. It will also allow users to see arrows on their phone while also being verbally alerted when an turn is coming up.

There are a whole range of devices that the new voice navigated Bing maps will work on. Some of these include the HTC HD2 and the Motorola Q9c. Any Windows phone on Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T can utilize the navigation.

They have also redesigned the home page to give people easier, quicker access to searches like traffic and movies.

These updates for Windows phones are a welcome change and boost these phones closer to the more feature-filled cell phones. I think it’s a great improvement from Microsoft.

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Cellphones Are Making Landlines Obsolete

U.S. reporters stated on Wednesday that about twenty-five percent of U.S. homes have abandoned their landlines and taken to just utilizing their cellphones. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has also found that about fifteen percent of household who do have the standard landlines with plug-in phones almost never use them.

The NCHS, which is a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost completely depends on telephone surveys to gather their information about the American public’s health. This decrease in use of landlines could cause some problems with their information gathering.

Some of the information that the NCHS collected shows some interesting implications for the cellphone industry in America. The data was taken from 21,375 different households across America. 40,619 of those surveyed were adults and 14,984 were children were under the age of 18.

The reports stated that, "One of every four American homes (24.5 percent) had only wireless telephones (also known as cellular telephones, cellphones, or mobile phones) during the last half of 2009 -- an increase of 1.8 percentage points since the first half of 2009. In addition, one of every seven American homes (14.9 percent) had a land line yet received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones."

Almost 52 million Americans live in a household that only utilizes cellphones. The study also found that nearly half of adults aged 25 to 29 lived in a household that doesn’t use a landline.

Honestly, this information does not come as a shock to me. It’s crazy how much people use there cell phones. Really what’s the point of a landline for young adults? Some people, like my grandparents, hold on to their landlines and appreciate their simplicity. In the next few decades, I believe that the use of landlines is likely to almost disappear. Everything is going cellular. It’s so much easier to the younger generations. Although these statistics may seem drastic, expect to see the numbers rising even more in the future.

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AT&T’s 5-Year Apple iPhone Contract Finally Confirmed

Although Apple’s iPhone is an extremely popular device there is a major complaint about it. The iPhone is only available through AT&T, which is generally known as the network with the most dropped calls. I can definitely confirm this accusation. The two years that I was stuck with AT&T’s service were horrible. I’ve never had so many dropped calls before.

There have been rumors for quite some time that AT&T had a 5-year exclusive agreement with Apple to secure the iPhone with their service, but not until now has there been complete confirmation of this rumor. There has even been an ongoing class-action lawsuit in California that claims that AT&T and Apple have created an illegal monopoly with the exclusivity of the iPhone.

Now that the original iPhone has been released for about three years, proof has finally surfaced to confirm the rumors that have been circling lately. Engadet states: "[The accused monopoly was established] by telling customers the iPhone's required service contract was two years long when the Apple / AT&T exclusivity deal was actually for five years--thus requiring buyers to re-up with AT&T for three years (and not, say, T-Mobile) if they wanted to keep using the iPhone."

In response, AT&T and Apple say, “The duration of the exclusive Apple-[AT&T] agreement was not 'secret' either.” They quote from a May 21, 2007 USA Today article, that was published over a month before the iPhone's release, that states, "AT&T has exclusive U.S. distribution rights for five years-an eternity in the go-go cellphone world."

Unfortunately, it seems that there is not really anything that iPhone users can do. They just going to be stuck with AT&T service for the next couple years. Once the AT&T/iPhone contract is up, it will be really interesting the see who wins the fight over the rights to Apple’s iPhone.

NFL's RedZone Comes to Your Cell Phone

Picture it. It's football Sunday. Your favorite NFL team is getting ready to play their big division rival and you've just settled in to watch and cheer them on, surrounded by your all your favorite snacks. But something happens and you get called into the office. Or maybe you find yourself having to work instead of lounge around in front of your plasma TV. Wouldn't it be great if you could watch the big game from your cell phone?

Well, next season, that dream may become a reality...sort of. The NFL has announced that it is planning to make the RedZone Channel available to cell phone users in fall of 2010. The RedZone cable channel provides coverage of big plays all day on Sunday, during the football season. It switches to any game when a team is within 20 yards of a touchdown, as well as showing all scoring plays, turnovers, and other big plays. The new cell phone version of the channel will be just like the TV version.

Prices haven't yet been set for the mobile version of RedZone. This year, Sprint customers could pay $15 a month for the company's NFL Mobile package (it was also included in their Simply Everything package). Also, DirecTV customers could pay $100 for the mobile feed for the NFL Sunday Ticket, in addition to the nearly $300 they already pay.

Some are wondering whether or not the new venue for watching football will cause broadcasters to see a decline in TV watchers. The NFL has billion-dollar deals with both CBS and Fox and last year, the league was one of the few businesses in the country that did not seen a decline, due to the economy. As a matter of fact, this season's games have seen record numbers of viewers.

But former president of CBS Sports, Neal Pilson, says the networks need not worry, "Right now the sentiment among broadcasters is that this kind of wireless and digital product is only building fans' attachments to the broadcasts. So far, if you can avoid it, you're not going to choose your two-by-two-inch cell phone over your 52-inch, hi-def television."

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Anti-Radiation Blackberry Cases from Pong

There is still a fierce ongoing debate about how cell phone radiation really affects the human body. For Blackberry Curve owners who don’t want to take any chances, Pong Research has developed a brand new Blackberry Curve Case that should put their minds at ease.

At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Pong revealed their new protective cell phone case that looks very much like any other cell phone case but has been certified by FCC-certified labs to reduce cell phone radiation exposure by more than 60 percent. This case will fit on the 8300, 8310, 8320, and 8330 models of the Curve.

In September, everyone seemed very doubtful about the case, but in October after extensive radiation-testing, it was found to indeed work.

It is very difficult to explain how exactly the technology works, but in Pong’s press release on Wednesday they said, “These cell phone cases exemplify many years of research into precise antenna structure in order to couple with the energy from the phone’s antenna.”

Although difficult to explain, these are the basics to how the cell phone case works. Cell phones send and receive signals from wireless networks by emitting radiation. Now radiation is unable to go to one specific area. It scatters everywhere, and therefore some of it can reach our head. By using what they call “passive antenna coupling,” a second antenna is placed inside of the actual case. This antenna pulls the energy towards itself without having to communicate back to the cell tower.

Essentially, the radiation is redirected up and away from the brain. The case does not lessen radiation levels at all, so while your directing radiation away from your brain, you will not be compromising your cell phone signal. Researchers said, “What we found is the signal strength actually improves, as it is now being directed toward the cell phone tower instead of you head, where it is not improving communication.”

Pong has already released a case like this for the iPhone and it is said that most likely Verizon’s Droid and Google’s Nexus One will be the next phones to receive such cases. Smartphones are the top priority because they have higher radiation levels due to the fact that they have much more data communication to accommodate.

If these cases take off like I think they will, there is definitely a possibility that future cell phones will have this new antenna coupling technology automatically built into the phone.

If you’re at all concerned about cell phone radiation, this is a great way to not worry anymore. The anti-radiation Blackberry Curve case is available for $49.95.

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The Best Free Blackberry Apps

The Blackberry is the number one smartphone platform in the U.S. It had tons of apps years before the iPhone was even thought up. The issue that Blackberry has had is that there has never been an easy way to find and install these apps. Some of them can be found at the Blackberry App World, where you download apps directly on your Blackberry. Others are available from the independent store GetJar or some are only downloadable from developers’ Web sites. Its harder to find Blackberry apps than iPhone or Android apps, so hopefully this guide will help you to find the top 10 Blackberry apps much easier.

1. AP Mobile News 2.5.5
Download at: The Associated Press; bb.apnews.com
This news app gives you easy access to local, national, and international news. You can receive up-to-the-minute news, send stories to your Facebook, read stories off-line, or watch news videos. Any news needs will be met with this very convenient app.

2. BBNotePad 1.1.2
Download at: Qin; http://krzysztow.com/BBNotePad/#downloadm
The BBNotePad is so much more useful than the Blackberry notepad. It has three different font sizes, gives you the ability to save files as .txt so you can open files right on your computer, and can send memos to other devices through Bluetooth.

3. Bloomberg Mobile 1.9.11.5
Download at: Bloomberg LP; m.bloomberg.com
Bloomberg is the best free business app for Blackberry. It can provide you with news, stock information, customized lists of stock, market trends, and company descriptions that can be very helpful and is extremely easy to use.

4. BOLT 1.5
Download at: Bitstream; www.boltbrowser.com
BOLT is a quick, high-quality browser that can actually download Web pages so they look the same as they would on your desktop computer. You are also able to use all the usual browser features just with a fantastic page views.

5. Facebook 1.7.0.18
Download at: Research in Motion; www.blackberry.com
This app can turn your Blackberry into a complete version of Facebook. You are able to view your news feed, lets you view recent status updates and photos, view comments and wall posts, upload or tag photos, a do pretty much anything you can do when using Facebook from a computer.

6. FlashLight 1.0.2
Download at: App Pro Shop from the Blackberry App World
There are a variety of different free flashlight apps to choose from but FlashLight from the App Pro Shop seems to be the easiest to use. The light is bright and you are given the option to adjust the color and the brightness. The manufacturers say that different colors work better for different situations.

7. Gmail 2.0.6
Download at: Google; m.google.com/a/
You can get so many more features with Gmail. If you choose to read your Gmail through the built-in Blackberry client, you’re going to have a pretty basic experience. If you download the Gmail app, you will be able to access your contact list, sent mail, labels, and stars, and the great thing is that it looks just like Gmail.

8. Google Maps 3.2
Download at: Google; m.google.com/maps
Google Maps gives you GPS navigation for free. It offers driving, transit, and walking directions. There are even real-time traffic updates that help you get around high-traffic areas. You can easily look up businesses and street addresses and keep yourself going in the right direction.

9. Ka-Glom 1.4
Download at: Magmic; www.magmic.com
Finding a fun free game for you Blackberry can be difficult, but Ka-Glom is a puzzle game that will keep you occupied for awhile. It’s a little bit like Tetris, but with some added bonuses. This is a quick, fun-loving game that can give you something a little bit different to amuse you.

10. Opera Mini 5.0
Download at: Opera Software; mini.opera.com
The Opera Mini is great for speed. It is able to compress Web pages so that they can transfer more quickly and reformat them so they are readable on small screens. You are able to utilize tabs and bookmarks and can view the page from a desktop view.

These are the top ten free Blackberry Apps. Although Blackberry Apps can be difficult to find, you now have a guide to find the most useful ones easily.

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The Blackberry Bold 9700

AT&T is now offering the update to the Blackberry Bold 9000, the new and improved Blackberry Bold 9700. It is more powerful, useful, and chic than the previous version, and for $99 after rebates and a two year contract, it’s a very good deal that incorporates everything that you could possibly need for work related business.

The design of the Bold 9700 is slimmer and lighter than its predecessor. The smartphone measures 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches and weighs 4.3 ounces. The back panel is made of faux leather, while the rest of the phone features chrome accents and full-size keys that spread across the entire width of the phone. Although it is not a touch screen, the LCD screen is extremely bright and sharp. The display resolution comes in at 480 x 360 pixels. The QWERTY keyboard on the Bold 9700 is fantastic. It is easy to use, accurate, and very quiet. The optical trackpad is another welcome improvement over the easily broken trackball that can be found on the Bold 9000.

The Bold is credited as a quad-band EDGE and quad-band HSDPA 3.6 device with Wi-Fi. The device uses Wi-Fi for data purposes but does support Wi-Fi calling like a lot of T-Mobile’s smartphones.

When the Bold 9700 was compared to the iPhone 3GS for call quality, clarity, and crispness, the Bold came out on top. I found this very impressive. It also has a fantastic speakerphone that is able to project perfectly. Battery life averages at about 6 hours and 45 minutes of continuous talk time when in 3G mode.

The Bold features a 624 MHz processor and Blackberry OS 5.0. This offers upgraded Web browsers, threaded text messages, and a variety of other enhancements. Included with the phone is push e-mail for accounts including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Exchange. There are about 3,000 apps that are available to buy and download from the Blackberry App World. Included on the phone is AT&T’s Navigator which features TeleNav-powered GPS directions. IM clients are not preloaded on the Bold, but they can be easily downloaded from major accounts for free. With the Documents to Go software, you can view and edit Word and Excel files and even display PowerPoint presentations right from your smartphone.

The list of impressive features just continues on as the Bold is also an excellent music player. It syncs with both PCs and Macs and even syncs unprotected iTunes music and playlists. You can also easily download MP3 tracks from Napster or eMusic. Included with the Bold 9700 is a pair of wired stereo earbuds and a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack. AT&T even throws in a 2GB microSD card for storing all your media files. The card is conveniently stored underneath the battery cover.

The 3.2-megapixel camera on the Bold 9700 should serve all your purposes well. It features image stabilization, auto-focus, and an LED flash. The photos seems sharp and well balanced. The video is 480 x 360-pixels, 28 frames per second, and extremely sharp and smooth.

The Blackberry Bold 9700 is a fantastic smartphone with a multitude of features. It has quite a bit of competition in AT&T’s lineup, but I feel that it stays towards the top with its low price tag, sleek design, and many impressive features. If your looking for a new smartphone, this is definitely one direction to consider.

AT&T's New Pantech Impact

As of now, AT&T’s phone with the very best features could quite possibly be the Pantech Impact. It has an impressive array of specs including: a horizontal flip that features haptic-feedback-enhanced, invisible number keys, a hidden QWERTY keyboard, and an extra LCD display inside. This could be the phone that you have been looking for.

The Impact has a very strong, sturdy feel about it. It measures 4.2 x 2.0 x 0.7 inches and weighs 4.5 ounces. It is available in two different colors: metallic blue with a black faceplate and internal keyboard or a faded pink with a black faceplate and white keyboard. Overall, the Impact is very nicely put together with its high-quality plastic. The hidden LED keypad is a cool feature. It will appear when you hit the hold button on the side of the phone. It may be a little difficult to get used to, but you can easily catch on and the effect is awesome.

Once you open up the Impact, there is a bright 2.6-inch screen with 240 x 400 pixel resolution. On both sides of the screen, there are stereo speakers that produce fantastic sound quality. The QWERTY keyboard has large, flat, square keys that make texting a breeze. The voice quality of the phone is quite clear, but the low volume of the earpiece can make talking to people in windy conditions a little difficult. The speakerphone is moderately loud but sounds slightly tinny. With Bluetooth, everything is crystal clear and with the perfect amount of volume. Another quick fact to note is the fact that the Impact is a quad-band EDGE and dual-band HSDPA phone. This means that it can work overseas, although the 3G speed is restricted strictly to the U.S. and Canada.

Web browsers look incredibly sharp on the Impact and load quite quickly. Navigation is made easy by the five-way control pad. The browsing experience is very impressive for a midrange feature phone. You can connect to Yahoo, AOL, AIM, Gmail, and Windows Live through AT&T’s Mobile Email offer, but it will cost you an extra $5. Also featured on the Impact is the TeleNav-powered AT&T GPS Navigator that includes the ability to utilize voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions. There are 80MB of internal storage on the Impact, but in case you need even more room, there is a bottom-mounted microSD card slot that will work with up to a 32GB card.

Other features on the Impact include a 2-megapixel auto-focus camera. Although it lacks an LED flash, it does have video recording capabilities. The photos that the phone took were sharp, but they lacked bright colors. The videos were a bit grainy, but otherwise quite smooth at 320 x 240 pixel resolution and 13 frames per second.

The Pantech Impact is a welcome arrival to AT&T’s line up of phones. With the multitude of features including: the invisible number keys, extra LCD display, quick and easy Web browsing, and plenty of internal storage, you can’t beat the $99 price tag of this feature phone.

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Cell Phone Radiation Concerns

There are many people that have expressed their concern for cell phone radiation, and there has actually been quite a bit of debate over it. Honestly, the thought of my cell phone emitting some sort of radiation has never once crossed my mind until I was reading about why some people feel that their could be some danger with constant cell phone usage.

It is known fact that cell phones do emit a tiny amount of radiation with their cellular radios turned on. Even with hundreds of cell phone calls, the amount of radiation is well within the human limits of tolerance. The thing with radiation though is that it has a cumulative effect over time. There is a theoretical possibility that a small number of people who constantly use a cell phone over a long period of time are more at risk to develop certain kinds of neck and brain cancer, but as of now nothing has been proven.

There have been a few studies done this past year that have raised some questions and caused some concerns. A new analysis of 23 unconnected epidemiological studies were unable to find any indication of a connection between cell phones and tumor development. Unfortunately when those studies were looked at more closely, eight of the cases discovered that there was a 10 to 30 percent increased risk of tumors next to those who do not use cell phones, and the increased risk was directly proportionate to the amount of use.

The Environmental Working Group, who released an online guide to cell phone radiation in September, stated that they believed that with the current standard of cell phones there is an increased risk of a long term user (which they define as someone who has used a cell phone for over 10 years) developing a brain tumor from the radiation of the cell phone.

Most everyone believes that more research is needed before any kind of final statement is made about the consequences of the radiation. There have been numerous independent studies that have failed to link cancer to cell phone usage, but since no study will be able to come out and say that cell phone use is 100 percent safe, there will always be worry in the back of some people’s minds.

So the easiest way to avoid any possible harm from the radiation or maybe just to put your mind at ease is to use your cell phone hands free. If the cell phone is not up to your ear, than you avoid all possible risks from the radiation emissions. This is easy enough to do with the use of speaker phone and Bluetooth. Hopefully you aren’t too paranoid about the small radiation possibilities, but if they have worried you, I hope that you now understand that there is no proof of cell phone radiation causing any forms of cancer. Soon there should be more research on this topic that will hopefully put all these accusations to rest.

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.

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.

The HTC Snap

The HTC Snap is one of the new phones in Microsoft’s line of business-oriented, low-cost, Windows Mobile smartphones, and although it has a quick and easy performance, it doesn’t really do much to stand out among the multitudes of new smartphones that have been released this year.

For starters, the Snap’s design is not too much to talk about. It’s made out a slab of black plastic that has a somewhat cheap feel, and measures 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.5 inches (HWD). It features a 2.4-inch LCD screen with the usual 320 x 240 resolution and an LED backlight. The QWERTY keyboard isn’t too bad with its curved four rows of raised keys, although they do make a very distinct click when pressed.

Concerning calls and reception, the Snap does pretty well. The quality of calls is good with the well-balanced pitch in the earpiece and wind rejection for the mic. The Snap has great reception with an EV-DO signal, and the speakerphone also does great and has plenty of volume.

When it comes to e-mail on the Snap, the phone can utilize Microsoft’s Direct Push E-mail and syncs with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server. A cool feature that can be considered very helpful with searching through e-mails would be HTC’s Inner Circle feature. This allows the user to select a contact from their address book and consolidate all the e-mails from that contact all into one spot. The Snap cannot create Microsoft Word and Excel documents but it can view and edit them, and it cannot edit Powerpoint presentations but can display them.

Internet Explorer Mobile 6 is what the Snap uses for its web browsing. It includes zoom support and a mouse cursors. If users of the Snap purchase Sprint’s Simply Everything plan they are able to access TeleNav-powered Sprint Navigation, live Sprint TV, and Sprint’s NASCAR and NFL Mobile Live portal.

The camera on the Snap is certainly not anything to really talk about. It’s not awful, but it’s definitely not special. It features a common 2-megapixel sensor, which means that most of the pictures you take will be too soft and not have enough contrast. The smartphone has no flash and no autofocus to assist with the blurriness or contrast, so pictures are really just about average.

Sprint is offering the HTC Snap for $149.99 (with a two-year service contract and mail-in rebates.) This phone isn’t bad, but it’s most certainly not a fantastic option when you consider all the other smartphones available for about the same price. If your looking for a great, reliable smartphone that caters to all your business needs, I personally would say that you should look in a different direction.

Top 8 Business Smartphones for Under $100

It has recently become surprisingly easy to find an incredibly helpful and functional smartphone that will cater to all your business needs for a very reasonable price. You no longer have to pan out anymore than $100 to have an amazing phone with every feature you could possibly imagine. Here's a quick rundown of the smartphones, sorted by provider, that are considered the best possible options available for under $100.

Sprint

BlackBerry Curve 8330
$49.99 (with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate)
Yeah this BlackBerry isn't RIM's newest smartphone, with the release of the Curve 8900, but that doesn't take away from all the great features of the Curve 8330. With the built-in GPS, push e-mail, and fantastic voice quality this BlackBerry just can't be beat for the price tag.

T-Mobile

BlackBerry Curve 8320
$74.99 (with two-year contract)
This smartphone has a wonderful mixture of features and power, and the newly lowered price just tops it all off. Another appealing aspect to consider with this phone is T-Mobile's unlimited Wi-Fi calling capabilities that they offer for a mere $9.99/month.

T-Mobile Dash
$49.99 (with two-year contract)
Now the Dash is certainly considered old and compared to a lot of other smartphones it can thought slow at times, but to posses a phone with the ability to run Windows Mobile 6 and offers all normal Microsoft-related features for such a low price gives reason to look past the sluggishness.

AT&T

Nokia E71x
$99.99 (with two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate)
The E71x is an awesome looking phone. The design is perfect. Add to its attractiveness a powerful Web browser, built-in Office document editing, and Microsoft Exchange support and you have one heck of a phone.

Apple iPhone 3G
$99.99 (with two-year contract)
This smartphone features fantastic Microsoft Exchange connectivity that allows you to sync calendars, contacts, and e-mails with your corporate server. Also with all the amazing applications offered with the iPhone 3G this certainly is hard phone to pass up.

Samsung Jack SGH-i637
$99.99 (with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate)
The Jack is a slick chic phone that instantly catches your eye. Beyond looks, it also features an impressive mix of 3G and Wi-Fi radio, great voice quality, and Windows Mobile messaging. The Jack is a great smartphone for consumers who don't like the iPhone to look into.

Verizon Wireless

Blackberry Curve 8330
$49.99 (with two year contract)
This BlackBerry is also offered by Sprint as I mentioned above. With Verizon however, this smartphone does not include an IM client or mobile TV support, but you also don't have to deal with the $100 mail-in rebate that you would have if you went with Sprint as your provider. So really it just depends on what application you want for your phone.

HTC Ozone
$49.99 (with two-year contract)
The Ozone has plenty of attractive application and features. The highlights would include its CDMA and GSM compatibility and its Windows Mobile abilities. Package it with Verizon's dependable network and your business needs are sure to be met.

Verizon's Waterproof Flip Phone

How many more incredible features can be engineered for a cell phone? I’m not sure, but Verizon Wireless’ newest development has most certainly caught my eye. They have just recently released what has to be their best new camera phone, and it just happens to be waterproof. How absolutely awesome is that? For a person that texts even when they’re in the shower or at the pool, the release of the Verizon’s Casio Exilim C721 was fantastic news!

The Exilim is pretty good-looking for a flip phone. It’s a little big, measuring 4 x 2 x .08 inches and weighing 4.5 ounces, but the features make up for the slight bulk. When flipped open, you can examine the 2.3-inch screen that features 320 x 240-pixel display and swivels a full 180 degrees.

The Exilim is truly water resistant and meets all required military standards for shock and vibration. The phone can be dropped three feet deep into water and can be dropped safely from a height of about four feet above the water. Although with the swivel screen it is not a super tough phone, the Exilim really is completely water proof.

Verizon’s Exilim is the only U.S. carrier-model phone to feature a camera with optical zoom. The optical zoom works flawlessly and can even be utilized in video mode. The phone also has a LED flash that is considerably brighter than most other camera phones. So the fact that this phone can also take pictures underwater is just the icing on the cake.

The Exilim also features the ability to sync music with Rhapsody and connect to Verizon’s V Cast Video provider. It supports Verizon’s VZ Navigator GPS program and can be used as a modem on Verizon’s EV-DO Rev A network.

This phone starts a $279.99 with a Verizon contract. Although this fact makes the Exilim Verizon’s most expensive non-smartphone, with all the cool features it definitely makes it worth it. The amazing camera and the incredible fact that the phone is impervious to water makes the higher price tag seem justified to me.