RSS FeedAlcatel is back!
Remember this mobile phone brand? Their most memorable unit was given a moniker “The Safeguard Phone” or “The Soap Bar Phone” since it’s shape reminded the owner of a soap bar. One strong selling point of the Alcatel brand is the price. Now they have come back with better-designed phones, still at the most competitive prices.
At the age of the colored, multi-media, multi-tasking mobile phones, a lot of brands are competing for a piece of the mobile phone market. Alcatel has once again innovated a series of phones that are not too shabby, feature-rich and competitively priced. Their newest model has even forayed to the touch-screen mobile phone competition. The price, as you guessed is a quarter of the other touch-screen brands. Alcatel’s design for their mobile phones now are not bad either, they have even revamped their logo to match the new style of their phones. The lowest model looks even better than the highest model of the other brands, and where can you get a mobile phone at under 5USD.
To reposition itself and reintroduce the Alcatel brand, they partnered with Playboy, yes playboy the mens men brand to release the first ever playboy phone. I just hope they don’t put Hef as the phones default wallpaper.
The actual model name for the Acatel Playboy phone is the Alcatel V770. The phone comes in standard piano black and white models, but the special edition playboy series V770’s come in a plethora of styles and colors. They even plastered the Logo bunny all over the phone. I like the gold version which looks really blinged out, but there is the chrome/silver and pink version as well. Some more other models come in custom colors. All Special Edition Alcatel Playboy phone comes preloaded with the Playboy Playmates images, wallpapers, screen savers and videos.
Alcatel V770
One retailer gave Gee Please a unit for review and testing. I got the white model with the silver trims. It looks expensive. The finish is sleek and glossy. Size is thin and wide, and the first time I held it, I dropped it and dented the corner. Amazingly, the dent is so small for a 3ft. drop. It also didn’t even dazed the phone. The display is quite vivid and bright, it is quite large and the color is crisp and everything is detailed even to the navigation icons.
Navigation is a breeze; it uses the standard icon grid system. The v770 is posed as a music phone, so it comes with a nice-looking ear phone which is not ugly-sounding either. However, the cans use a mini-usb to attach to the phone, I hope Alcatel opted for the standard 3.5mm jack. It also has a microSD slot for more music and videos. For a basic phone it is really great.
Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone
My qualms with the Alcatel v770 however is that the camera is not too great. No front camera for video calls and no dedicated controls for music playing aside from the keypad. It does not have a standard 3-column keypad layout as users are accustomed to with the other phones. Rather it has four which is hard to text on. The 4-Column keypad is not even qwerty. Another annoying thing is that your messages can’t be saved on the external card, rather on the built-in memory which limits your number of saved messages. Once the message memory is full, you cannot receive further messages until you clear out it’s message memory.
Stronger points of the Playboy phone is it’s display which is vibrant even under direct sunlight. Sound for Alerts and Music is quite loud which won’t allow you to even miss a text message or a phone call with it’s loudness. Navigation is quick and responsive. The phone signal is also quite strong wherever I am as compared to my other mobile phones. The built in mobile web browser is quite fast and renders mobile sites very well. Like accessing Yahoo Mobile is so quick and accessing your mail is like accessing it on the standard Yahoo Mail on your Computer. Not to mention the battery life that juices up for five to seven days on standby on actual test. Overall for quality versus price, you won’t lose on the Alcatel v770 or the limited edition Playboy versions. Don’t expect to be like Hugh Hefner though, he is “The Man”, you only have “The Phone”.
Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone
Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone
LG KP-500 Contest
I was searching for a good format and some ideas how to hold a contest for my blog, I found this other tech blog technogra.ph holding a contest rewarding the winner an LG KP-500 Cookie. Now my blog is not on their level yet, so I can’t afford to give out prizes like mobile phones, possibly in the future I could.
So instead of spending time scouring for information, I decided I’ll join their contest and see if the contest is legit and If I am up to par in winning the prize. That way, you my dear readers will have an idea that blog contests are cool, legit and rewarding. Now you can start giving my design entry a 1 to 5 cookie rating by responding on the comment section below with something like “Hey GeePlease, I give your design 5 Cookie Rating! Pretty Neat!”
Cookie Represents Me Entry
Here are the Instructions on the technogra.ph site.
- Download the LG KP500 Cookie thumb mark icon here. Already Did
- Design an original artwork that best represents your personality using the famous Cookie thumbprint. Entries must not be the same as the ones posted above. Design must be in jpeg file format with a minimum resolution of 1275 X 1650 pixels. Entry Above, Click Image for the actual resolution image required by the contest.
- Post your design and write a blog/entry telling your readers:
- Why your thumb mark design represents you. See Below
- Why you deserve an LG Cookie phone. See Below
- Ask your friends to rate your design on a scale of 1 – 5 cookies and share their insights. One insight per visitor will be counted. (Get your readers to comment on your entry and rate your design). Readers Please Comment, this is your Job!
- Post your blog/entry link in the thread of this main competition site (leave an opinion below containing a link to your entry). I did after writing this entry
- The promo starts on April 8, 2009. Deadline for entries is on April 29, 2009, Friday. I’m in
- One male and one female winner each of LG Cookie will be announced here on Friday, May 1st 2009. I’m Male
Whew! Now that I followed their Contest Rules, let me post the other two requirements.
Why your thumb mark design represents you.
It represents me because I talk a lot, write a lot, blabber a lot, blog a lot and basically I live in the communications age, so it’s all about communicating. When I was a child I was always called “The Mouth” because I could talk a lot about things and I always intervene when older people talk. The little swooshes around the thumbprint are the media I am in, there are four; the web, mobile phone, real talk, and writing. Oh and the background is still the thumbprint translating that I am leaving my mark on what I talk about.
Why you deserve an LG Cookie phone.
Because honestly, I want one and second it would be useful for me to prove that blog contests are fun and reliable so readers of blogs won’t hesitate joining blog contests in the future.
Now Start Voting for me! Remember 1 to 5 Cookie rating, I’d appreciate your honesty in giving me a 5 Cookie rating, Lol!
Nokia Clone Wars
Much like Jango Fett being cloned in the Star Wars saga, it wouldn’t take long from the copy masters from China to copy our favorite gadgets and things. They have cloned Nike shoes, which looks like “real” nike’s. They have cloned bags from prada to dolce, hopefully they haven’t cloned Yao Ming yet.
This is a testament to their craftsmanship, attention to details, intricacy, concentration and discipline. They also need their economy to work, so a bunch of cloning (used loosely, means copying too) shops and factories has sprouted all over China. Before they made crappy copies, and now you can’t even distinguish the Authentic from the clone.
Their next project is due to the ever increasing need for the Techie crowd to always be on top of the Gadget list. So they started to clone electronic gadgets as well. From all types of iPods, iPhones and all types of mobile phones. I recently purchased a Nokia 5310 clone just to give a quality review to the Chinese manufacturing and cloning prowess.
Jango Fett in a Million
First off, Side by side the original 5310 (I borrowed an original from a friend) it looks exactly the same. The paint job, the plastic’s color, the plastics design and even intricate details like the rain-drop style design on the battery cover is to the point, exact. Dimensions are also the same, I didn’t notice a difference in their weight nor the display quality. There is one problem on my clones software version, it was on the cheeky side with custom cutesy icons and I can’t use an mp3 as an alert tone, although it plays mp3’s. I changed my unit with the more standard version of the clone which has the exact software as the original. It even has a memory card slot and it comes packed with a 256Mb microSD. The only thing I noticed that was off is the Nokia logo itself. On the clone version, it was Nckia, with the letter “C” more like an “O” but with a little stripe in the supposed open end of the letter “C”.
I was Cloned!
A tell-tale sign for these cloned gadgets is more commonly on the feature set, like most early April release of the cloned Nokia phones has the same default tones and most can’t use mp3’s as message alerts. The batteries are also different on their models. On iPod clones, the screen is a bit murky and the tactile response of the touch-screen is a bit off. So better check your gadgets before you buy them, you might be paying a higher price for a cloned product which is priced two to four times less than the original price of the authentic.
Using the cloned phone for a couple of days, it feels and functions like the original, no hiccups and been solid for a week now. Dropped it twice already and it’s still functioning with not a single glitch. Been playing it’s mp3 a lot on the bus since it’s built-in speaker are much louder compared to it’s authentic counterpart.
Cheap but Great: Nokia 2630
You know this site is all about great affordable stuff right?. So you want a new mobile phone you can throw away when you get your PMS tantrums (if you are a girl) or you favorite football team loses and you put all your savings to your bookie (if you are a stupid moron)?
If you got 100 USD left in your pocket, then this would be the absolute phone for you. The All New Nokia 2630. I busted my Xpress Music phone 2 months after I bought it, I got it serviced but the week in between was hard thinking I couldn’t Txt (sms) all I want. Although i have my business phone with me, my personal phone is the busier one. So I got up and hunted for a phone. Price wasn’t my main concern at first.
Nokia 2630
So I went to a local Nokia Dealer and asked for their selections, they pointed me to the N-Series phones and the SuperNova lineup. I was sold on them and I was trying out some of them which I found amazing. Then I thought, why splurge on something I don’t essentially need? My other mobile will get replaced anyway.
Still the N-Series phones were quite tempting. That is when I sort of do my “take a leak” routine as a reason to think ten times before purchasing anything. I found this a good way to minimize impulse buying.
When I got out of the Mens room, I saw this pretty girl looking at lanyards in one section of the shop. Well I guess I have time to strike up a conversation, so I actually looked at lanyards my self and said “My phone is so heavy for these things, I think it’s nice for ID cards though”. The pretty girl which I got the name later as Jenny looked up and said, “Well you can always get a lighter phone”. What a nice idea I thought, so I talked to her some more and asked what phone she is using. That’s when she pulled out a bright white version of the Nokia 2630. So i said what a nice phone she has, she said thanks and quipped that it was affordable too. She then attached Read more
Obama: iPhone Savvy
No Offense to the McCain Tech and Campaign guys, but Obama’s got you owned! Obama always speak of CHANGE, and then McCain started chanting it too. But who actually goes with the time and change? Well I modestly say Obama. Although I am not biased to either one of them, this discovery made me lean a little to the Obama side. Obama has got his own iPhone App!
Obama iPhone App
There is a bunch of features there like current events, daily schedules for the Obama Campaign, Statistics and other Election related features like News and Videos which is a bit buggy sometimes.
Donate to Obama
I however dig the little green button at the button that says “Donate” with the countdown to the elections. It is nice way to get Donations, making it easy for the user to just click and go. The target crowd here are the techie and younger crowds, as your grandma couldn’t even squint to see the texts on the iPhone. Here is a thought however, what if Palin started taking some Model Shots of herself and make it availiable for download as an iPhone Wallpaper, would you Donate to her?
Philips Xenium: Simply Wow
It’s all I can say for this less than 150USD mobile phone. It’s looks is pretty ok, it’s specs are pretty so-so, but the battery life is the premium here.
The best feature I found was the auto turn-on and turn-off at a desired time you set, not that it needs this feature to save power, it is just an added plus. The power bar is the common 5 bar type, which I wish would have been better with an actual figure and percentage numbers. That 5 bars signify 12 days of standby. Now divide 12 by 5 and that is roughly how you figure out how much time you have left.
Philips Xenium 9@9
It has a VGA camera which takes average shots, although it doesn’t look pretty nice on the Xenium’s colored screen since the screen is an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED). Transfer the pictures on a computer and it looks pretty fine for modest use.
One of the actual stories connected to the Philips Xenium 9@9 is when a bunch of backpakers in China, in the Jinggang mountains last October 2001 were lost for 80 hours. One of them had a Xenium phone (I guess the older models), twenty hours later they were rescued thanks to an SMS exchange of the lost group with the rescue team.
Specifications:
SCREEN VGA, CMOS sensor
DATA Triband, GPRS, Bluetooth, micro USB (data and charging), WAP
MEMORY 2MB user memory with microSD slot
BATTERY Li-Ion 1790 mAh with up to 1,440 standby time and 17 hours talk time
DISPLAY 128×160-pixel, 65K-color, 1.8-inch TFT screen
SIZE 42×18.7×104.3mm, 108g
GP Gold Achievers
GIZMODO- JooJoo Tablet Gets New Interface With Updated Home Screen, Navigation and Keyboards [Jooojoo] March 11, 2010
- Intel's 6-Core Gulftown Gets Tested, Blows Us Away [CPUs] March 11, 2010
- Apple iBooks' Many Ebook Categories Include "Erotica" [Unconfirmed] March 11, 2010
- I Would Be Happy With Just Half an Infinity Bath [Bath] March 11, 2010
- Heavy Rain: A Peek Into the Future of Movies and Games [Entertain Me] March 11, 2010
- Emergency Vehicle Gadget Overload Will Kill/Save Us All [Trends] March 11, 2010
- The Barnes & Noble eReader iPad App Is On the Way (But Will Apple Maim It?) [Apple] March 11, 2010
- Chatroulette Map Shows You Where These Creeps Live [Chatroulette] March 11, 2010
- Pink Floyd Wins Legal Battle to Only Sell Full Albums Online [Downloads] March 11, 2010
- Where Next for the Manned Space Program? [Space] March 11, 2010
Recent Comments
- Chris Administrator Gee, Please...: Hi Worried. Yes, most Nissin Di866 depending on where you bought it from has some...
- Chris Administrator Gee, Please...: Hi Ricky, Not unless your Metz Manual flash is set to trigger at TTL, then it...
- worried: i just bought mine last saturday, to shot for my brother’s wedding… it was very noisy...
- Ricky: Hi, firstly, good job on this informative review. I’m looking for a 2nd slave flash for my Pentax...
- Chris Administrator Gee, Please...: Hi Sorry for the long wait, as you can see we haven’t updated the site yet,...
- Migs: Sir! I have two questions. 1) I have a Canon 430EX II, planning to buy Di622 which will serve as my slave....
- Jack: Hi, I just bought a Nissin Di622. When I try yesterday the unit with my Canon 7d as slave the di622 work but...
- Chris Administrator Gee, Please...: @Michael: It will work off-camera via ttl triggering. @Long: The red glass...
- benting: hello newbie here. which do you think is a best buy? two nissin di622 or 1 nikon sb-600? and i really...
- long: my red glass have broken and scattered to pieces…do i need to buy a new flashlight or can change the red...
