Gizm0 - Gadget Blog for the Technology Obsessed.

Don’t get too excited, this is a concept phone, but a prototype has already been built and shown at Mobile World Conference (MWC 2008). Using NVIDIA’s sick engine, this phone takes the wind out of the N96 hype. Of course one is expected to arrive Q3, and the other may or may not arrive soon, but it should. Its the illness. Don’t want to read specs? Try 12 megapixel still photos and 720P video. That’s right, shoot progressive HD video on your mobile phone.

Here are the jawdropping specs:

• ARM11 MPCore
• HD AVP (High Definition Audio Video Processor) 720p H.264, MPEG-4, and VC-1/WMV9 Decode
• 720p H.264 and MPEG-4 Encode
• Supports multi-standard audio formats including AAC, AMR, WMA, and MP3
• JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• ULP (Ultra Low Power) GeForce GPU
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• D3D Mobile
• Programmable pixel shader
• Programmable vertex and lighting
• CSAA support
• Advanced 2D graphics
• Up to 12Mpixel camera sensor support
• Advanced imaging features
• True dual display support
• 720p (1280×720) HDMI 1.2 support
• SXGA (1280×1024) LCD and CRT support
• Composite and S-Video TV output

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You were fun, iPhone, but now you’re starting to get a little heavy in the pocket - that shine is getting dusty, and you’re creakin’ like a 40 year old. Your features are getting all confused. You blank in and out cause your light sensors are broken. That EDGE data is starting to creep slower than molasses, and gosh darnit, I don’t want to see a miniature version of the NYTimes, I want to see a mobile version! Oh yeah your camera sucks and how come you can’t shoot video? Aren’t you supposed to be the illness?

Face it, we’re bored with the iPhone’s pet tricks. On to the new. We’re consumers and gadget freaks and we want more, more, more!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enter the Motorola Z10, the cell phone that knocks the iPhone out until June or so when a 3G version of the Mc phone is unveiled. Even then I might be enjoying the video camera on my Moto 210 too much to give it up. Here’s hoping the 3G iPhone has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

The Motorola Z10 has a 3.1 megapixel camera, which isn’t that great at all, but passable. Key however is the phone’s slick look and ability to shoot video.

Like Music? Peep this beauty, the Samsung SGH-i450. Featuring a full digital music player, a 3.5mm headset jack, and Bang & Olufsen speakers. The dual-slider design also offers a touch wheel for menu navigation. Slickz.

Nokia N96: the top phone for Europeans

This thing is the new champ but it sure does cost a whole lotta dough (550 euros). We’ve called it the world’s first superphone. For goodness sakes you canwatch TV on it. But peep out the price, 550 euros is like $800 or something. Still for the feature obsessed, this is the king.  As picky as we are, this thing has more features then we could ask for.  Well, let’s hope the N97 can shoot HD video!  Just kidding, the N96 doesn’t even arrive until late summer 2008!

Full specs of Nokia N96 include:

• WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS) connectivity
• DVB-H Class C, 470-750 MHz
• S60 3rd edition, FP2 UI
• 2.8” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colors
• 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and auto-exposure
• Dual-LED camera flash, video light, recording indicator, auto-focus assist light
• Secondary VGA (640 x 480 px) camera for video calls
• Video capture in MPEG-4 up to VGA at 30 fps
• Digital Video Stabilization
• Built-in GPS/A-GPS
• WLAN - IEEE802.11 g/b
• Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz, 76-90MHz) with RDS
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with Micro USB type B interface
• 3.5mm stereo headset plug , TV-out support (PAL/NTSC)
• Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP stereo/EDR
• 950 mAh battery with up to 220 min talk, 220 hrs standby time, 5 hrs video, 14 hrs music or 4 hrs TV playback
• Dimensions: 103×55×18 mm
• Weight: 125 g

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Its a beauty. The Lenova X300 is about 3 lbs and as thin as the Macbook Air. Yep, it fits inside that manilla envelope made so famous by Steve Jobs. In many respects, the Lenova X300 is in a league of its own. Not only is it the thinnest, but its also the most power-efficient Thinkpad ever made. Here are some highlights:* It weighs 2.93 lbs, and at its thinnest is .73 inches, and at its thickest is .93 inches. That’s about as thin as the Macbook Air but half a pound lighter. Sweet.

* Here’s where you might be tempted to switch from the Macbook Air: Unlike the Macbook Air, it has a built in DVD burner and three USB slots.

* Standard memory is 64 GB SOLID STATE and screen size is 13.3″ inches of LED backlit glory - some say it looks exactly like the Thinkpad T41’s 14.1″ display.

* Temperature of the actual laptop is always a balmy but not too hot 86 degrees, even two hours into running a DVD movie. That’s great if you’re putting the laptop on your well, lap, for hours on end.

* WiMax ready later in 2008. Meanwhile, its got 802.11n built in and tests have shown that it pulls an impressive 130 mbps.

* Its still a ThinkPad, which means the keyword is the best ever made.

* Price? $2,500-$3,000. The Macbook Air can be had for $1,800, but when configured with a 64 GB solid state hard drive like the Lenova X300, the price and specs match up quite nicely.

MacBook Air, fully spec’d, has its match. You’re either a ThinkPad X300 or a Macbook Air person - for mobile professionals, these two are your best bets.

The Thinkpad X300 is fully loaded and is impressive for managing to stuff a DVD player/burner inside its guts and still weigh/cost the same as the Macbook Air (with solid state). What would we do? Take the Macbook Air without solid state or anything else..for $1,799. What a deal. But for ultraportable enthusiasts and PC folks who want it all, the Lenova Thinkpad X300 is the cream of the crop.

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Garmin, a company known for their GPS receivers, is entering the the phone market, and in a big way. The Garmin Nuvifone is made for the iPhone age, except that shows up to the party wearing a few things the iPhone can only dream of, like true GPS navigation, (of course), 3G, ability to geo-tag photos, MMS and instant messenging and a built in video camera!

Available in Q3, the interface is also a surprise. It’s the same interface as used on the TomTom. With big icons and an easy to navigate user-interface, Garmin’s Nuvifone isn’t really meant to be an iPhone killer, just the next level of portable GPS - but its hard to deny that the two worlds are coming closer and closer together.

See it for yourself at 3GSM in Barcelona, February 11th-14th.

What follows is Garmin’s own press release on the Nuvifone - read only if you’re very interested or very geeky:

“The nuvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of utility and function in a single mobile device,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. “This is the breakthrough product that cell phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for — a single device that does it all.”

The nuvifone is an innovative mobile phone that has a wide range of advanced yet easy-to-use features. The all touchscreen device is the first of its kind to integrate premium 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging, and personal navigation functions in one device. When powered on, the 3.5-inch touchscreen display reveals three primary icons — “Call,” “Search,” and “View Map” which allow the user to effortlessly master the nüvifone’s functions.

The nuvifone is the ultimate multi-tasker. Calls are easily initiated by tapping the “Call” button and selecting a name from the contact list or by using the on-screen keypad. When the user is trying to juggle talking on their phone while entering their vehicle to start a trip, the nuvifone makes the transition simple. When the nuvifone is docked onto the vehicle mount, it automatically turns on the GPS, activates the navigation menu, and enables hands-free calling so that the user never misses a beat in the conversation and is able to begin routing to their destination with ease.

Customers familiar with Garmin’s industry leading nuvi(R) product line will feel right at home using the nuvifone’s personal navigation features. It includes preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or both, and allows drivers to quickly find a specific street address, establishment’s name or search for a destination by category using the nuvifone’s built-in database with millions of points of interest. Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to their destination. If they miss a turn along the route, nuvifone automatically recalculates a route and gets them back on track, speaking the names of the streets along the way.

The nuvifone is Garmin’s first device to include Google local search capability, which harnesses the vast point of interest information available from the world wide web. Nuvifone users can search for locations like “coffee shops” and Google will sort the results based on the user’s current location and relevance. Information provided by Google includes a web-based rating so that users can select the most appropriate destination and route directly to it. In addition, the nuvifone includes a web browser incorporating premium features and touchscreen operation for an optimum mobile browsing experience. The nuvifone also includes personal messaging functions, including email, text, and instant messaging.

For the ultimate in safety, the “Where am I?” feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. The nuvifone also helps drivers find their car in an unfamiliar spot or crowded parking lot by automatically marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount.

In addition to navigation, the nuvifone includes access to Garmin Online(TM), an online service offering constantly-updating information such as real-time traffic, fuel prices, stock prices, sport scores, news reports, local events and weather forecasts.

The nuvifone also includes numerous mobile entertainment applications. The built-in camera allows individuals to take a picture that will automatically be tagged with the exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. The user may then save the image so they can navigate back to the location, or email the image to a recipient who can navigate directly to the location. The nuvifone also provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available through Google’s Panoramio picture sharing site. The Panoramio photo search feature enhances the enjoyment and adventure of sightseeing in an otherwise unfamiliar location. Other multimedia functions of the nuvifone include a built-in video camera, MP3 and MPEG4/AAC.

Garmin anticipates that the nuvifone will be available in the third quarter of 2008. Specific details about pricing and sales partners will be announced in the future. Additional information about nuvifone is available at http://www.garmin.com/nuvifone.

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The Macbook Air is dropping tommorrow, and there’s been lots of criticism of it - not enough memory, no ethernet, no DVD burner, etc. What do we at Gizm0.com think? Hogwash. Gizm0.com takes our recommendations seriously, but yes, you should buy the Macbook Air, and quick like.

The issues they raise are b.s.:

- Memory isn’t like what it used to be. Buy a terabyte drive and keep it at home, where your precious memories should be in the first place. You could use your iPod’s 160 gb harddrive as your main harddrive, but we tend to lose things, so stick with the terabyte at home idea.

- no DVD/CD burner, well, no problem, they sell one for $99 bucks and you can keep that at home too.

- no ethernet cable, no firewire.  There’s $20 adaptors at radio shack to take care of those problems.  The idea is to keep it mobile and fashionable so that you can hang out at cafes, checking out gadget porn while cuties all around you check you out.  (oh yeah!)

If you have an office computer or desktop computer, you can keep everything there, what you get is style, mobility and Apple’s awesome OS. Go for it bro!

Macbook Air “shortcomings”

- No CD/DVD burner, not enough memory, no ethernet cable.

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The Nokia N95 may be the biggest competitor to the iPhone yet.  Here at Gizm0.com, we’re tracking alot of buzz on this mobile monster.   First n95blog.com posted “25 must have apps for the n95“.  Among the best apps, Fring, which is free mobile VoIP which enables free  internet calls and live chat over wifi and not your phone minutes.  Seems to work like a charm.  We also like Lifeblog, a mobile photo album tool.

BGR posted a story on limited edition pink Nokia N95s selling on eBay for about $650, or about $75 more then the basic silver variety - not bad.
Now your Nokia N95 can not only shoot pics in glorious 5 megapixels, record DVD quality video or guide you to the bar with its GPS navigation, but you’ll be able to match it with your girlish wardrobe.   Ladies, (and lady-men) you’ve come a long way.

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Peep this out cousin, that whip ain’t just a whip, its more like your personal Man Den but on wheels.  That means you can’t be content to listen to bad stock DJs on ghetto stock stereo systems.  You need the real dealz.  Well if your hearin’ me, this is what you’ll want:

Flir Pathfinder, $4,100

This thing will do your laundry and hook up your wife if you’re not feeling up to it.

Maestro Elite 5340 GPS by Magellan

This is a top of the line Magellan for about a grand.  Cop it if you feel like you need the best in GPS.

Garmin Nuvi 880, $1,000

You know Garmin can do GPS, but did you know it can talk to you now too?  You can also set it up with your mobile phone, etc.  Basically if you want to burn a $G instead of $200, cop this.

Sirius Backseat TV

Keep your ADD kids fixated for hours while you try to figure out how to get out of the Bronx Expressway.

Atlas CPC 1200

Confuse the hell out of your car passengers so they won’t dare touch your music.

Sync, a Ford/Microsoft callabo that’s actually pretty impressive.  You spit game at it, and it listens to you!  Like this “play ‘Throw Some Dee’s on It’.   Now Play ‘Tiffany’.”

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At $600, you’re hanging out with Louis Vuitton and Fendi, but this new Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Bag (that’s a mouthful), not only looks fashionable, but it can also power up your 17″ Powerbook after sitting all day in the sun. It has plugs for your other mobile devices and presumably a few pockets for pens and stuff.  $600 might be a bit too steep for me, but its a reasonable starting point for a product that can truly be handy.

Imagine powerblogging on the beach, never having to juice up back at the hotel because the sun is giving you everything you need. Its a beautiful thing! Besides, $600 becomes $200 pretty quickly when other people jump into the pool. We like where this is going..

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