Palm Pre phone: Binding appearance to functionality

palm-pre

Pre is a proprietary venture from Palm. In the past too, Palm has made some very smart phones. Pre also tries going the same way and it has really made life quite simple for many of its users.

Attractive appearance

The keyboard slides out beautifully. This permits quicker texting. The screen is wide and it’s a delight to watch videos, images and web programs on it. Roll it, whirl it, listen to most hip and soothing music. With Pre, you are the boss. The phone is formatted beautifully and packs functionality with style. Even the menu board is user friendly and gives way to an extremely intuitive interface.

Unified contacts and calendars

Palm Pre brings all your separate calendars together. This means that you will be accessing your Facebook, Google and other calendars in one single frame. For the purpose, it uses Synergy, a Trademarked Solution from Palm. You can also link your various contacts with the Unified Calendar Program. This way, you will be able to reach out to all the information you might need in one go.

Web-network through applications

You have a browser that expeditiously connects you to the outer world. The network connectivity is terrific and lets you check the latest news. This can be done through RSS Feeds which bring you the latest blogs and articles.

Universal Search

This is another proprietary program from Palm. All you have got to do is type. You will get a ready library of Google, Face Book, Wikipedia and other utility venues. With Universal Search, your expected results will keep narrowing down as you keep typing.

Combined message features

It has a single chat-style view which holds all your conversation with any given person together. This program is also attributable to Synergy. Through the contact list, you will be able to find out those contacts that are online. Within a second, you can begin conversing with them.

Wayfinder technology

GPS is the Way Finder tool this mobile uses. It helps you to keep track of your navigation. You also get the facility of Wi-Fi Hotspot among other things.

To sum it up

The gizmo appeals to different sections of people. This is because it has something for everyone. The fun-freaks love the video, music and Wi-Fi facility. Serious people love the fast network access. Corporate love the messaging, contact and calendar features and all of them, just all of them, love the design.

Here is raising a toast to this new beauty from Palm.

SAMSUNG i780

Samsung i780

INTRODUCTION:

The Samsung i780 is a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, the “I’range has five of the exact same phone. The Samsung i780 is the only one from the lot that is a Pocket PC.

DESIGN:

At the top front panel sits an earpiece slot covered with a smooth metallic grill. This is also used as a loudspeaker. The i780 sounds pleasant to listen to in both calls and music. VGA video calling camera resides on the right corner. The LED used forBluetooth and charging battery is on the left corner. A square 2.55”65K color and 320×320 pixel resolution TFT touch-screen display is very unusual piece from Samsung i780. This screen has its disadvantages like it doesn’t have auto resizing. You have good display indoors in terms of brightness and legibility but in the sunlight it’s not that good.
The QWERTY keyboard and display is separated by the navigation keys and the control in the centre of this layout is the dual modetouchpad . On either side of the central section you have two soft buttons the Call/End keys; these keys have a dual function. When the Call key is pressed and held it activates the speaker and when the End key is pressed and held this locks the phone.
There are 37 keys on the QWERTY keyboard these are set in 3 rows a fourth row is for special function buttons. Every key has two symbols except for the Shift, Enter, and Backspace keys. The keyboard has a strong whitebacklight.

MESSAGING

Receiving and sending messages are done from the centralized inbox. SMS, Email and MMS have a separate folder you can also save as many messages as you like there no limit on memory for messages. Email supports IMAP and POP3 accounts you can have many accounts also supports all attachments. The i780 also supports Direct Push meaning you will receive a message immediately you have received an email

VIDEOS AND MUSIC:
The multimedia player is pre-installed with Windows Media Player. Besides music you are also allowed to watch streaming TV and video. The user can sort music by album, artist, and genre or by creating a custom play list.
A pleasant enhancement is a mini player, a feature Samsung prioritized it works same as the Windows Media Player mini mode used for PC. Bellow the screen is a music control bar this displays volume button, title of the song, Forward, Rewind and Play buttons.
We installed the TCPMP player and necessary codecs for playing XviD and DivX video files. When movies played at VGA resolution on the i780 was flawless. Videos played on i780 ran smooth even zooming in didn’t worsen things.

CAMERA:

The Samsung i780 has a 2 megapixel camera with an average photo quality. Correct colour and the sharp photos produced are its strong points the menus of the camera can be used easily. The entire camera interface is in light green making it easy to distinguish between video mode and photos and thevideocam is set in a light orange.
The camera and video menu interface is identical videos are recorded at QVGA or QCIF resolution, 3GP format at 15fps.

CONNECTIVITY:

Now let’s see what PocketPCs are all about- connectivity, both wireless and wired. The Samsung i780 is geared in this department. USB connectivity provides seamless synchronization on MS Outlook Bluetooth 2.0 can also be used for this purpose.  A2DP support makes it possible to listen to music on the Bluetooth headset. It doesn’t support infrared but Wi-Fi is available. You will always have data connectivity with EDGE, GPRS and HSDPA.
Software-wise Samsung i780 comes installed with Explorer Mobile web browser and Opera Mobile 8.65.

FEATURES OF THE KEY:

Built-in GPS with A-GPS support
Unique dual mode touchpad navigation
Excellent preloaded content
TFT touchscreen display with large 2.55’ 320×320 pixels
3.6 Mbps, HSDPA
Bluetooth – A2DP, Wi-Fi
Fast PXA3xx processor
2 megapixel camera
QWERTY keyboard
128MB RAM  and 256MB ROM ( 150MB user available)
Innovative  home screen

CASING AND ERGONOMICS:

Although not a design sensation the Samsung i780 feels and looks good its ergonomics i780 is on par with most QWERTY smart-phones on sale now.
The i780 is very user friendly and a pleasure to use. The side panels are glossy black plastic. This unavoidably catches fingerprints. The back of the phone is not scratch-resistant the slot for memory card  is universal which is covered in soft plastic giving the phone clean  line keeping moist and dust away.

DISADVANTAGES:

* The number-pad is overly crammed.
* Camera lacks in auto focus and flash.
* Poor compatibility with other software creates unpopular resolution.

PICTURES AND VIDEOS:

An application, Pictures&Videos is found in the picture gallery in Windows Mobile. You use this to browse multimedia files you looking for. Its integrated in OS this doesn’t offer much difference from one phone to another. You are able to zoom in or out. You will also be able to do some simple editing on these images.
Apart from the normal software, Samsung i780 has some applications that deserve attention. Firstly the Content Manager, this offers advancement on imaging capabilities such as sorting files, editing, sending, reviewing etc. theslideshow works great.
Options bar below the screen includes frequently used tools such as filters, editing option and zooming.

GPS NAVIGATION:

While most applications on the i780 worked well the GPS navigation didn’t budge at all. After 2 hours of tests it couldn’t pickup a satellite. There was no response from the GPS hardware button either. Since it wasn’tpre-installed GPS software we ran Google Maps and the results where rather pleasing.

CONCLUSION:

The Samsung i780 is a smart and trendy PocketPC, offers a compact design and is user friendly with a large screen and full QWERTY keyboard. It has advanced Pocket PC capabilities excellent application and innovation bound to attract most Window Mobile users.
After all the tests done on the Samsung i780 we where very impressed with the improvements made to the`I” series. The Samsung i780 is a magnificent QWERTY Pocket PC is a great smart phone, could be one of the bestsellers on the market.