Smartphones & Gear

A Quick Look at the Verizon HTC Droid Incredible Android Phone

Just a few days ago we announced the new Verizon HTC Incredible, and tonight they just went live in the Verizon Wireless store. I happen to have one here, so let’s take a look inside the box, shall we? Look at all of that shiny black plastic on the front, just waiting for you to breathe on it, smudge it up, and allow dust to land on its pristine surface. The Droid Incredible measures roughly 4.6″ tall x 2.3″ wide x 0.5″ thick; it’s slightly thinner than an iPhone, with a screen that puts the iPhone’s to shame … even…


Native Union Moshi Moshi 02 Review

I enjoy reviewing gear.  I enjoy it even more when the product I’m reviewing just makes sense.  Such is the case with the Native Union Moshi Moshi 02. I still have a land line at home, but I know many people do not.  With today’s unlimited long distance mobile plans and even more companies offering unlimited everything, more and more people are choosing to rely on their mobile phone’s at home and well as on the road. If’ there’s one thing I’ve always struggled with when using my mobile phone at home for extended periods of time, it’s the comfort…


Otterbox Commuter Case for the Motorola Droid Review

I take my phone everywhere. During work and everyday life I don’t worry much about it; I work in an office and live in suburban New Jersey. It’s not really a rough life for a smartphone. I do, however, take it when I go hiking, biking and running as a GPS tracker, plus it rides along in my pocket when I walk the dog, rain or shine. So I’m always on the lookout for a solid case that can protect my phone during outdoors-y times, and still look good for everyday use. Needless to say, I was VERY excited when…


Vertu Constellation Ayxta Update! It’s Broken!

Vertu Constellation Ayxta If you noticed last week, we did an unboxing on the Vertu Constellation Ayxta.  A gorgeous new flip phone that costs oodles and oodles..  Well this week its broken! I put one of my 3 SIMs in it to start using it and absorbing it into my daily repertoire.  And then it started happening! I had synched the phone to my PC (Ok Mac Book Pro running Windows XP) and loaded my contacts and a few pertinent pics and was very excited to get started! I turned it on and the screen clock on the inside started…


Review of the Google Nexus One Car Dock Kit

I was very excited when I found out that the Google Nexus One Car Dock was available. As I mentioned during my review of the desktop dock, I thought that it was very well designed. In fact, I liked it enough that I bought another one for work. I was hoping that the car dock would be just as useful to me. I will make some comparisons with the TomTom car kit for the iPod Touch, which I currently use. Read on for my impressions of the car dock after its paces over the past couple of days. As soon…


Unboxing the Vertu Constellation Ayxta

Vertu, the high-end Nokia luxury handset company, released a flip version of their phone towards the end of 2009 and I finally got my hands on one!  So this is the unboxing view, and I’ll come back in a few weeks and do a proper review of the phone whilst in use. I purchased the unit from one of the jewellery stores here in Sydney after much haggling, and carried my plain brown box through the city back to the train stop.  I found it a bit odd to carry a large shopping bag from a fine jewellery store through…


Windows Phone 7 Series Is Now Simply Windows Phone 7

It’s not major news, but it is good news: Microsoft is simplifying their “Windows Phone 7 Series” to the less cumbersome “Windows Phone 7”.  An obvious explanation for the “Series” moniker is that it was meant to “indicate that there would be a range of phones providing choice of hardware and operator.” Microsoft must have realized that the name was a bit too cumbersome and in the interest of simplifying things, shortened it to Windows Phone 7. Good move, since that’s what we were calling it anyway! 😉 Tis the season for Series finales. We’ve got one too – dropping…


BugMe for iPhone Review: It Does (But in a Good Way)

It’s times like this that are hard to write a lead-in for a review.  Anyone who has been interested in handheld gadgets since the days of the original Palm devices are going to recognize the name BugMe! So, it’s hard not to start off by talking about how much I liked BugMe! back in the days when I used a Palm, and how pleased I was when Electric Pocket finally released it for Windows Mobile, and now the iPhone,  blah, blah, blah… So, let’s presume that you, the reader, are not someone who has been using handhelds for the past…


Windows Phone 7 Coming to the HTC HD2, From Russia with Love

As Judie, Clinton and I put the finishing touches on a three-way review of the most impressive Windows Mobile 6.5 device today, the Russians have been busy trying to give us what Microsoft won’t: Windows Phone 7. Due to its button design falling outside the requirements of Windows Phone 7, the HD2 was destined to live out its life in the increasingly dull world of Windows Mobile. Things may be about to change with photos and videos demoing a version of Windows Phone 7 running on an HTC HD2, in almost all it’s glory. At this point it’s a tad…


Dear AT&T, I’m Going To Purchase One of Your New Microcells, but Let’s Not Act As If You’re Doing Me Any Favors, Okay?

AT&T’s Microcell. You get great reception. AT&T gets to double dip. As you may have read elsewhere on the web AT&T is rolling out Microcells that will solve many of the reception issues people have at home. That is, assuming they already have a highspeed Internet connection. You see, the Microcell will allow you to connect to your high-speed Internet service and then have your iPhone or any other AT&T cell phone jump on the data connection from your cable company and route calls through it. This will, in turn, improve your cell reception because you won’t be using AT&T’s…


StarHunt for iPhone OS Review

I play a lot of hunt and find type games on my iPhone 3Gs.  Many of them look and run the same.  You use the pinch and zoom function of the iPhone OS to move around the screen searching for a items in a list.  While this can be incredibly fun it can be difficult to find the sometimes tiny items amongst the various screens. StarHunt takes the point and click adventure genre to a whole different level with stunning 3-D graphics, quick rendering and over 1,000 detailed still frame images. You task is to explore a house which contains…


HTC Answers Apple: “We will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation”

photo credit: recompose I know I wasn’t the only person who watched in bemused disbelief when news came out early this month that Apple was suing HTC, arguably one of the world’s most innovative smartphone hardware manufacturers, for infringing upon 20 of their patents. Almost immediately, Engadget had a list of every claim where Apple was crying foul, and they were kind enough to translate the jargon-filled legal lingo so that those of us without law degrees could understand that Apple was suing over items ranging from HTC’s use of “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A…


Flip AT&T’s Control over the Backflip

If you bought a Moto Backflip, you probably noticed the odd use of Yahoo Search over Google, and the incredible amount of AT&T bloatware included on the device. Unfortunately, short of rooting it there’s not much you can do about either of those, but AT&T did something far worse to the Backflip that you WILL want to change. Every other Android phone offers an option to install apps from outside the marketplace. Sometimes it is a beta (like the Swype keyboard beta), other times it is things like PDANet, a tethering utility, that isn’t sold through the marketplace. If you…


Ringo Pro for Android Review

I have to be honest and admit that I’ve never really been one to play around with custom ringtones for individual contacts.   I just look at the screen to see who is calling and decide at that point whether or not to answer.  So when Electric Pocket recently asked Gear Diary if we would like to take a look at Ringo Pro for Android, I’ll have to admit that I was a little slow to raise my hand.  Now that I’ve had a little time to play around with it, I’m finding it a little fun.


Newsy App for Android Review: All the latest news right to your mobile

Newsy takes a different approach to delivering the latest news content over the net. Their unique method of  compiling the same news story from many different sources gives you all angles and aspects of each story through various news agencies. The site has an easy to use interface and it is simple to search out the story you are looking for. Overall the site is quite impressive, the news delivery is great and the site is free to subscribe to. Lets take a look at the mobile app offered through the Android Marketplace.


Poynt for iPhone OS Review

Back in June, Jason took at look at the Poynt application for the Blackberry OS.  He called it a “staple” on his Blackberry and one of the best applications available. Well Poynt is back, this time with a release for the iPhone OS.  The free application hit the iTunes App Store early last week, and I’ve had some time to play with the all-in-one location based search powerhouse. Has Poynt become a staple on my iPhone like it did on Jason’s Blackberry? Read on to find out.


Ten Things We Like About the HTC Google Nexus One, and Five Things We Don’t

Judie: When Dan, Larry, and I attended Digital Experience, a product showcase at CES, there was one particular device that caught our immediate attention. Unlike all of the other gadgets and electronic items we saw on display and which were currently available for purchase, the HTC Google Nexus One was the one that we gathered around, drooled over, and all immediately made plans to order. Dan and I purchased ours as soon as we got back to our rooms that evening to be delivered FedEx overnight to my hotel in Las Vegas by Friday afternoon. Our experience would later become…


Clear Coat Review: the Clear Choice for Maximum Protection

There are plenty of choices when it comes to screen and body protection for your electronic devices and I think I’ve tried them all.  Clear Coat might just be the best of the bunch. What is Clear Coat?  Here’s how the company describes it. Simply put, Clear-Coat is the only protection you’ll need for your devices. Forget those awkward, ugly cases! Clear-Coat keeps your device scratch-free without adding bulk or changing the look of your device. Clear-Coat is meticulously designed in-house, and then custom cut for every device. So an iPhone Clear-Coat fits the iPhone perfectly, and a Blackberry Clear-Coat…


SKTools Updated to 4.5.1.4!

SKTools, a popular system maintenance suite for Windows Mobile, has been updated to version 4.5.1.4. This update brings a new tool to SKTools, File Explorer. The newly implemented tool brings lots of functionality features such as Copy, Move, Rename and Delete as file operations, preview for certain file types, change attributes, create shortcuts, etc. Here’s the list of the latest changes: TuneUP!: added tweak “Enable/Disable Call Record menu item” (WM6.5+) “File Explorer”: set/clear file attributes for current item extendent tweaks definitions file format 4.4 -> 4.5 compatibility fixes I have been using SKTools for as long as I could remember,…


Navigon MobileNavigator for Windows Phones Review

A few years back, I was a big fan of OnCourse Navigator version 5 running on Windows Mobile PDAs. The interesting things here is that OCN5 was really just the name for the North American release of Navigon MobileNavigator. And although OCN 5 wasn’t terribly stable, it was one of the best-looking navigators out there at the time. So then they disappeared from the North American market. OCN 6 was actually a rebadged iGo 6, not a Navigon product anymore. So now, on the heels of a successful iPhone product, Navigon have reentered the market with MobileNavigator for Windows Phones.  So where did they go?   What happened?  More important,…


IM+ Lite for BlackBerry Review

An ongoing problem these days is simply how to keep up with everything and everyone? You’ve got email, Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messaging (or IM’ing as the kids simply abbreviate it these days).   Don’t forget SMS texting.  Unless you’re out on Mount Kilimanjaro you better get used to the expectation of being connected — and reachable — by at least ten different communication methods.   And they’ll all be used before you even get a phone call. With this onslaught of communication overload, how are you going to manage?  Are you going to ball up in the fetal position and cry yourself…