Comparing the Motorola CLIQ 2 to Other Smart Phones

April 4th, 2011

T-Mobile and Motorola joined together in launching the CLIQ 2, which comes equipped with MOTOBLUR. This latest release is quite similar to its predecessor, the original Motorola CLIQ, but has some enhanced features and specifications. It has all the makings of becoming a competitor for other high-end smart phones in the range.
Here is what is unique about the Motorola CLIQ 2 in comparison to other Android powered PDA phones.

To begin with, the Motorola CLIQ 2 accessories package comes with the phone itself, a microUSB cable, a wall charger, a 2GB microSD card, a set of stereo headphones and your basics guide manual. Motorola was among the first to introduce android technology in 2009 and came out with a not-so-sleek looking design. Still, with its great looking QWERTY keyboard and its sleek features, the CLIQ 2 comes out to be a very pleasing phone. Coming to the screen, the CLIQ2 has a big 3.7” display, which is really good for your eyes; this is big when compared to other models in the category. The resolution too is high at 480 X 854 pixels. Its color production is superior on the neutral level; however, in sunlight you will miss the lack of luminance. The touch screen is highly responsive and the unit comes with a Motorola CLIQ 2 screen protector.

The CLIQ 2 comes with a USB port and a head jack set. But another thing is their vibrant button and keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard is a plus feature and has a distinguishable honeycomb layout when compared to others. The buttons can be felt by your fingertips, and a day into use, you will be able to navigate it on the basis of feel. The 4-way directional pad is also highly useful.

Another great thing on the camera is the 5-megapixel camera. This comes with a flash, and two notches below this setting stands the speakerphone grill. Unlike other Android phones, you don’t have to wrestle with this one to get the back cover off. It does so easily. Once it is open, you have easy access to the battery, SIM card slot and the microSD card slot.

Unlike other Android phones, there are varieties of cases that can be picked for the Motorola CLIQ 2. A popular Motorola CLIQ 2 case is the glove case. This is silicone or plastic based. All it leaves open are the display keys, the buttons and the ports. Because the CLIQ 2 comes in two parts, these cases too work the same way and come in two parts; one for the front of the device and the other for the back. What these cases do best is shield the phone from any scratches on the back. However, be warned that they can add a significant amount of weight to the phone. Holster cases are your best bet if you move around constantly and don’t want weight added to your phone. They can be attached to your belt and ensure that you don’t misplace it.

The Motorola CLIQ 2 is an interesting advancement on its earlier model. Considering its sleekness, it adds to its premium quotient. With features that are useful and easily accessible, this model is one for those who like their phones and take them seriously. This phone is not too big or bulky and its keypad is highly responsive to your touch.

A Travel Journal 21st Century Style

March 31st, 2011

If you’re about to go travelling then what better way to document your travels with a netbook. However you will have to make the decision whether or not a netbook, laptop or mini-notebook is for you? There are plenty of good quality laptops and netbooks on the market at reasonably cheap prices.

 

You may desire a computer with Microsoft Office, a good keyboard and perhaps the capability to play movies. Some decent choices are the Asus Eee PC 1005PE, HP Laptops Mini 210 and the Samsung N210. These netbooks tend to sell in the £280-£320 range. These fall into the cheaper end of the netbook categories. The silver Toshiba NB305-10F is a good choice. It is solidly made and has a great isolated keyboard. Alternatively, most high-end netbooks have similar specification such as: a 10in screen, 1GB of memory, a 250 GB hard drive, Microsoft Windows 7 and 1024 x 600 pixels. So there isn’t much separating them.

 

Unlike laptops, netbooks are primarily used for email, messaging and web-based applications rather than running applications such as Microsoft Office or Media Player; it’s not like you can expect to experience the cinematic qualities of a LCD Sony TV on your travels, is it? Your netbook can become overwhelmed by these programmes. Rather than upgrade a netbook to larger 2GB of memory and Windows Premium consider buying a mini-notebook, prices start at roughly £350-£400. It may be best to opt for the Dell Inspiron 11z which looks like a netbook but is as powerful as mini-notebook. It possesses a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron 743 ULV chip and will run desktop applications far better. The 11z also has 2GB of memory and an 11.6in screen.

Epson stylus DX6000, Is it any good?

December 13th, 2010

The Epson  Stylus DX6000 is very similar to the DX5050 but costs £14 more, for which you get a few extra  bells and whistles  .

A 50mm colour screen sits on the left side of the  printer  , however it’s fixed in place at a set angle, unlike the adjustable screens on many of it’s competitors devices  . It’s very simple to use with plenty of buttons, although the only copy-resizing method is a simple fit-to-page option. The paper trays are  identical to  those on the cheaper model, as is the detachable scanner lid and the door on the front that conceals the memory card slots. It takes four separate ink cartridges, which  at the time of writing are not  that expensive to replace, so running costs are reasonably low . The Epson ink cartridges are numbered T0715 for the multipack or individually they are T0711/2/3/4.

Ink cartridges for the Epson stylus DX6000 are what Epson call Durabrite and are pigment based.  The quality of  our black text  documents printed using  this printer  wasn’t quite up to scratch . We  noticed quite a lot of of spidering around characters and colour documents had a slight graininess. Black areas  looked to have a slight brown tinge to them  , and draft text suffers from the same faint and broken appearance as that of the DX5050. Photos have a bit too much contrast, leaving yellows far too bright .

Like the DX5050, the DX6000′s scanner is its best feature. It produces perfectly captured colour tones and a reasonable level of detail. The driver software offers modes for beginners and experts. It’s not quite as sharp and focused as its cheaper sibling, but it’s one of the better scanners  we have tested in this price range  . This has the knock-on effect of producing good quality copies, too, with mono copies being particularly  good  .

 The DX6000 is not the fastest printer in the universe  , with a mono print rate of just 3.4ppm falling to 1.6ppm for colour. Six photos took over 20 minutes and a colour copy took almost a minute, while a 1,200dpi photo scan took nearly three-and-a-half minutes to complete. Overall not a bad machine, with the scanner being the highlight.

   
 

The HTC Desire HD : The Basics Explained

October 2nd, 2010

HTC is a company that has certainly been making waves in recent years. Its clever marketing campaigns and new approaches have helped garner the company a good deal of attention for its line of products. The HTC Desire HD has a few features going for it that will likely jump out quickly at a seasoned smartphone user.

The HTC Desire HD has a great deal to offer for a variety of reasons. Processing speed certainly stands out with the HTC Desire HD sporting a 1 GHz Android 2.2 processor. This is the kind of processing power that people are increasingly growing to expect from their smartphones and the HTC Desire HD delivers. Another way that the HTC Desire HD stands out is that it has an internal storage of 1.5 GB and 768 MB of RAM. With the kind of power that the HTC Desire HD has, it is necessary that it is backed up with sufficient storage and RAM and the HTC Desire HD is successful once more.

Another area where the HTC Desire HD impresses is in the size of the screen. At 4.3 inches, the HTC Desire HD’s screen is bigger than many of its rivals and allows for a nice viewing experience. You can expect this smartphone to handle most of the commonly used video formats such as Windows Media Video 9 and MP4 among others. Audio playback is likewise well supported with MP3 and Windows Media Audio 9 among many others.

It just seems like yesterday that 5 MP cameras were quite the range on smartphones, but HTC is already offering an 8 MP camera on its Desire HD. You will likely be happy to hear that the HTC Desire HD also has a dual LED flash as well, so that you can be assured of getting a good picture in any lighting condition. You are probably thinking that the “HD” part of the HTC Desire HD’s name must come into play somewhere and you’re right. One of the ways that the HTC Desire HD lives up to its name is in its video recording. The HTC Desire HD can record at 720p. Having a large screen is important for many, if not most, smartphone users.

And the beneficial features of the HTC Desire don’t end there. Dolby Mobile and SRS virtual surround sound are included in the device. These features definitely amp up the product’s quality. The HTC Desire also contains social networking software like HTC Peep.

There are definitely lots of smartphone options out there, but few pack in as many features as does the HTC Desire HD. While this company may not be as well known as Samsung or Blackberry, it is worth taking a look at. The size of the phone coupled with its impressive array of functionality helps to make the HTC Desire HD a true contender.

More : HTC Desire HD Deals

Watch Sling TV shows on Iphone

September 16th, 2010

BBC’s iPlayer had a great end to the year in 2008, expose record viewing figures for it’s online TV avail in the UK.
December showed a gigantic 41 million views of BBC content using the classic live internet TV service, showing it’s best calendar month ever since launch in December 2007.Programming included Wallace and Gromit’s new show ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’ which had 8 million views over the week between Christmas and new year.
BBC spokesman, Erik Huggers said:- This confirms that 2008 was the year of the BBC iPlayer. The service evolved dramatically throughout its commencement 12 months  we’ve just introduced downloading for Mac and Linux users, and a special version of BBC iPlayer for CBBC and the innovation will continue in 2009.
Top watches on BBC iPlayer December 24-31 2008
1 Wallace And Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death2 Doctor Who Series 4: The Next Doctor3 Top Gear Series 12: Episode 8 (Vietnam)4 Gavin and Stacey: Christmas Special5 The Royle menage: The New Sofa6 EastEnders 26/12/087 Outnumbered Series 2: Episode 78 EastEnders 25/12/2008 21:009 EastEnders 29/12/0810 EastEnders 25/12/2008 20:0011 Mock the Week Series 6: Episode 1312 Have I Got News for You Christmas Special 200813 EastEnders 30/12/0814 Blackadder Rides Again15 The 39 Steps16 Top Gear Series 9: Episode 317 Never Mind the Buzzcocks Series 18: Episode 418 EastEnders 24/12/0819 Survivors Episode 620 Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special 2008.
Great news from what is considered the greatest catch up TV service on the planet.

Newcomer to the internet tv world and rival to Hulu, Sling Media has shown a demo application origionally called SlingPlayer fluid allowing viewing audience to watch their home TV shows on the Apple iPhone.
The Company said in an announcement:- ‘SlingPlayer Mobile gives consumers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via your iPhone using a criterion network joining. In step-up, SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone users can also date their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV, or even queue new recordings while away from home.’

US internet users are watching more TV online and Youtube is heretofore the king of the moving images.
Viewers viewed over 12.5 billion videos across the internet in the month of November, zooming up an impressive 34 percentage on the previous year, from hunting by ComScore.

 Great news if your making money from online TV and video, websites such as YouTube and Hulu. Analyst’s predict the market for video advertising will increase to 45% to $850 million during 2009.
 

Live Internet TV, movies and video viewing will grow and grow, but then have’nt we always said that?

Buying A Digital Camera – What To Consider

August 17th, 2010

Digital camera technology is constantly changing all the time. These devices have also dropped in price quite dramatically over the last few years. It is actually quite possible to find an affordable digital camera these days which is really superb. Many people actually don’t take the time to think about their purchase before they buy a digital camera and they end up with one that is not really suitable meaning that it is not long before they have to look for a new one. And you could avoid wasting money if you sat down before buying and thought about the camera you were purchasing. Some of the things you need to think about before you buy are listed below.

 

- The first thing you want to do when purchasing a digital camera is to decide what you want to use it for. There are some advanced cameras which come with lots of frills but if you are only going to be using your camera occasionally, you do not need to buy one like this.

 

- Before you make your purchase it is vital that you get a good look at it. Some people have no problem paying for a camera which they haven’t even had a look at outside of its box. If you are purchasing online then this can be a real problem; you can get around it by going to a real store to check the camera out before buying it for a cheaper price online. If you would prefer not to do this then the best thing to do would be to look through the customer reviews on the site.

 

- Make sure that they LCD screen is big enough for you to see. Some cameras have LCD screens which are quite small but they can be hard to use because of their size. You should really try to aim for a screen which is bigger than 16 inches.

 

Hopefully these small pieces of advice will help you when you are purchasing your next digital camera.

 

More and more people are shopping for their goods online nowadays. People seem to be buying everything online. From monitors to laptop memory, if you know where to search, then all the very best deals can be had online. On top of this, a lot of folk shop for things like laptops from the internet also.

Dealing With Common Printer Problems

July 17th, 2010

I really don’t think I’m alone in saying that my printer frequently drives me crazy. I really think that the lack of use that it gets is the main issue here; whenever I am not using it, problems seem to happen. I have bought three new printers in the past five years and the old ones are just gathering dust in my garage. Believe it or not my newest printer is starting to cause problems already and I have only had this for the past four months. I am still getting poor quality pages even though I have just bought brand new ink cartridges. I can’t afford to keep on purchasing new printers so I have tried to do a bit of research online.

 

I discovered that when a printer is not used very often the printer heads can become clogged and I think this is what keeps happening to mine. The solution to this is to follow your printer’s instructions and get it to perform a clean to get rid of dried ink. For those who use Windows, this can be done quite easily through control panel; you then just select printers. If you click on your printer then you should be allowed to commence the self-clean. Happily this worked for me but only after two attempts.

 

I actually came across some more interesting information about messages that tell you your ink is empty while I was researching my printer’s problems. I found out that these messages are extremely unreliable so that would probably explain why I quite often see them even after I have only just replaced my ink cartridges. I have read that there is something that you can do to fix this problem but it seemed far too complicated for me. I tend to leave anything too complicated to the experts as I don’t want to make the problems with my already temperamental printer worse; this could result in me having to waste more money on another printer.

 

With technology marching at an unstoppable rate, most homes today have computers installed but quite often they find they need assistance with problems that may arise, such as printer help. And these are not the only issues as network problems also has the potential to cause problems. PC security can also be a headache for some home pc users.

Business Waste – Could You Be Doing More?

July 4th, 2010

Using fewer resources and reducing waste are things that every business wants to do; why then are most businesses not following through with strategies to help them achieve those goals? The reason is that most businesses have tried out a few waste reducing strategies but have found them to actually end up costing them more (in terms of money and time) than the benefits are worth. It is not that the strategies that they have tried implementing are wrong, but rather that they have not implemented them correctly. Whenever you want any part of your business to be more efficient, starting off with an audit of what is being currently done is advisable, and waste reduction is no exception. A good starting point is to assess what materials are being used and how much energy and water are being consumed. All parts of the business need to be evaluated, from lighting to vehicle use. Small savings made in several parts of a business add up to make a big difference when they are combined. Having established what exactly you are using now, the next step is to work out how to reduce usage where possible. As with the waste audit itself, this needs to be done thoroughly and not just involve someone sitting down and brainstorming for half an hour. This is not a small task, and appropriate amounts of time and money need to be invested in it. It is also not something that anyone can do, as a knowledge of waste reduction practices is needed if you want the results to be worthwhile. The most effective way for businesses to proceed is to hire an environmental consultant to advise on the best course of action to take. By taking this approach businesses can avoid making the mistakes that most businesses make and start saving money and reducing their footprint on the environment in the quickest possible time. You would normally hire a consultant when you are venturing into an area that you are not familiar with, so why not in this situation too? As well benefiting financially and helping the environment, it should also be remembered that there is legal issues involved. There is a lot of environmental legislation that needs to be adhered to and failing to do so could result in large fines being levied against your business. Ignorance is no defense, and whilst you could read up on this legislation yourself, is that really a good use of your time? An environmental consultant will be fully aware of the various environmental laws that are in place in your country and will advise you accordingly.

More : Environmental Consultants Edinburgh

Why There Is A Dead Wrong Concept Among People Regarding Digital Cameras

July 1st, 2010

Film cameras are a thing of the past; digital cameras own the world of photography now.  Some photographers still use the film cameras but the digital ones have more than just an edge and you can even learn how to make money with it, with a course like camera dollars.  

The effect of film is lost on a digital camera.  The format in which your photo is stored in a digital camera is also digital, and it is saved on the camera’s memory.

You have to install special software on your computer to enable the digital camera function.  First, you snap your photos, and then you use the cables of your camera to connect to your computer, before loading your photos onto it.  Using your printer, your photos can be printed out like they are, or you could simply find some website where they are needed, or store them on a disc for watching later, or email them, or sell them via camera dollars.

The moment your photos are uploaded, there is no limit to what you can do with them, making people realise constantly that the computer may just be the best thing that happened to your digital camera.  With this, you can do away with the film that has to be developed first before printing.

There is no way you could prefer letting your roll of film gather dust in a drawer first before you eventually took it in for developing.  Fortunately, you are saved the trouble by the digital camera.

Canon Pixma MP270 tested here

June 25th, 2010

If you are looking for a value for money all in one printer, offering black and colour copying and photo printing. Look no further as we have seen this selling for under £40 online .

The neatly-styled black and very light grey box follows the lines of Canon’s other PIXMA MP machines. 

The control panel – set straight into the top surface of the printer, to the right of the scanner  lid  .   Buttons for copying and scanning are evident along with paper type selection and fit copy to a page options  . 

 There are no memory card slots fitted at this price, but a Pictbridge socket is supplied, so you can print photos directly from your digital camera  . 

At the back is a  single  USB socket, as the PIXMA MP270 supports neither cabled nor wireless networking . Lift the scanner section and the cartridge  carriers slide into the middle of the carriage, so you can clip in the  ink cartridges. There’s a black cartridge and a tri-colour one and  are nice and easy to install  . The Canon ink cartridges are numbered PG-510 & CL-511 for the standard capacity, and PG-512 & CL-513 for the high capacity ones.

Speed wise, with a maximum black text figure of  7  ppm and a colour figure of 2.5ppm. They’re quite a way below the rated figures of 8.4ipm and 4.8ipm Canon quotes though.

Single-page copies from the PIXMA MP270 were done in around 40 seconds. A 15 x 10cm photo took one minute, 23 seconds in high-quality print mode and 54 seconds in normal mode.  

Normal print quality is more than sufficient for day-to-day photographs and, while not quite up to the standard of Canon’s four-colour and six-colour printers, it produces smooth, clear photos, with plenty of foreground detail and a good colour gamut. Even dark areas of images show up well and colours are natural throughout .

Plain paper prints were also very good , with clean black text. Colour graphics on plain paper were okay, but they did show some dithering, but nothing to terrible . Copies were very good and the colour copies were exceptional .

Printing costs for the Canon ink cartridges were on a par with results from Epson ink cartridges on past machines tested, so nothing to worry about there.

Verdict

For just £40 you cannot really go wrong with this printer, print quality is fair, copying is excellent, running costs are average. Bargain!