Gadget Reviews

As a cell-phone user who was eager for a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, I was eager to finally try out the BlackBerry 8830.

The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is definitely designed for business people on the go. In fact, it claims to be “the first CDMA smartphone capable of roaming globally on GSM/GPRS networks”. This means you can pretty much travel the world without having to change your phone, your phone number, or your e-mail.

I had to admit that using a BlackBerry takes a little getting used to. The 8830 has this tiny track-ball mouse for interface that is reminiscent of Atari’s Centipede video game. However, once I used the Setup Wizard, the BlackBerry opened up to me.

In a matter of minutes, I had figured out how to view my email online, and could surf the web. As a newbie to smartphones, I have quickly discovered that there are some limitations to surfing the web online with a tiny screen.

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Recent weekend stats have shown that National Treasure: Book of Secrets has surpassed its predecessor.

As a gadget blogger, I was amazed at the amount of cool gadgets displayed in this film, and would like to review several of them at once. None of these contain any spoilers to the film.

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The new LG’s KU990 is undeniably a slinky number in the world of mobiles phones. It’s a slim and good looking and doesn’t feel plasticky. In simple terms this is a camera that you can ring people on as well as watch TV, browse the web and listen to music. Its large 66 mm touch pad screen occupies most of the front making it look like a tiny plasma whilst on the reverse, a lens encircled by jog wheel used to control the zoom and navigate through menus and adjust volume, gives the familiar appearance of a camera!

Navigation is made straight forward and friendly by the large and sensible icon layout on the touch screen. Helpfully, you can also set the touchpad to vibrate when you touch it – confirming each selection. Although the icons and buttons on the touchpad are a good size, not having small fingers or long fingernails be a disadvantage, but if this is the case, the small extendable stylus on standby. The only slightly annoying thing is the storage of the stylus which dangles untidily from the top of the phone.

You can view the full LG Viewty review over on our sister site Coolest Reviews.

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Recently, the demo for the game Scene It! was released on the XBox Live Marketplace. Being the thrifty consumer that I am, I downloaded the free demo so I could try the game before I bought it.

It was a typical, lowest common denominator type of trivia game created to encompass the broadest possible audience. Being a geek who has lots of specialized, obscure trivial knowledge, this frustrated me.
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Google have recently released a native version of Google Maps, for Symbian.

Compared to the older Java version of the program, this has lots of advantages, the most obvious being start-up speed and runtime speed. Every animation is smooth, loading times are blazing if you have a good connection.

An added feature would be the GPS support. This is really cool as long as you have an always-on connection, especially when on foot. It’s got all of the search features you know from the online version of Google Maps.

Read on for some hands-on reports and screenshots.

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Digital picture frames have really taken off this year. Here we compare some of the cheapest and best digital picture frames that are currently available with regards to both features and value for money. We’ll also provide an explanation of all the features that the various digital photo frames have to offer.

Check here for a full selection of digital picture frames for sale or continue down to read our reviews and comparisons.

	Pandigital	Kodak	eStarling	Phillips	Portable USA
Screen Size	8″	10″	7″	6.5″	10.4″
Resolution	800 x 600	800x 480	480 x 270	720 x 480	640 x 480
Aspect Ratio	4:3	16:9	16:9	4:3	16:9
Frame Style	Acrylic and black wood	Black Gloss	Black Piano Finish	Interchangeable	Cherry finish
Remote Control	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Wi-Fi	Not yet	Yes	Yes	No	No
Memory Cards	6 in 1 card Reader	MMC SD MS CF	MMC SD MS CF	USB	MMC SD MS CF
Internal Memory	128MB	128MB
Sound	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Plays Video	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Optional Batteries	Optional	N	N	N	N
Special Features	Built in clock, calendar and alarm	Print directly to any PictBridge enabled printers	turn-off automatically at night, email photos to the frame, text Messaging to Frame	Interchangable frames
Price	$179.99	$199.31	$149.99	$136.93	$175.95
Price

You can see an explanation of all comparison points here.

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Upon looking in my Google Docs page today, I discovered some new thing: Google Presentations.

Of course, the first thing to do was test it. And I did. And it’s cool!.. Even if there are no fancy transitions or animations, you can still create decent, good-looking presentations, and there are some pretty nice features to it too.

Best of all, the presentations are always online and you can access them anywhere.

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For the unknowing, Apple started shipping its new iPod Touch late last week. This is the new iPod that’s essentially the iPhone sans the phone; prices start at $300 for 8GB and go up to $400 for 16GB. While they’re usually sold out as quickly as they come in, I managed to grab one and made a nice little review, at least I hope it’s nice. I’ll be covering the design and structure of the device itself, the UI and applications, music playback, video playback, and the iTunes WiFi store (I know it’s an application, but it’s special!).
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