My First Android Phone - LG P500 Optimus One Review!

So finally I bought an Android phone. There aren't many choices for me due to budget limitation.. yes I am limiting myself =_=. I then settled with LG Optimus One because many people recommended it for Android with best battery lifetime. Is it true? Well, let's find out.

This is the phone we are talking about, LG P500 Optimus One

When first time arrived, the phone was still using the stock ROM (Froyo 2.2.2). What I like from the stock ROM are only these two things:

• Using LG Launcher, you could group the application in the Menu
• LG Keyboard offers two type of keypad : full qwerty and nokia-like keypad.

 The menu layout with LG Launcher

It comes with Android 2.2.2 by default

The default / stock ROM come with many useless application which I already forgot every single of their name. It quite bit lagged when you open the menu and the quadrant score only around 6xx.

The screen is 320x480 pixel in decent 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen LCD and yes the pixels produced is not enough to run HD Games =( The colors are looking normal and the screen also responsive. No issue there. The camera is actually kinda disappointing. It produces decent picture with huge filesize, no flash support and I also experienced shutter lag.

It comes packed with 1500 mAH Lithium battery. Compared to the BlackBerry Storm 9500 standard 1400 mAH, in my usage then the Optimus One is slightly better. But of course it all depends on your usage.

Another fun feature and in this phone is the Wireless Tethering Feature. You could use your Optimus One act as a mi-fi router. But of course it is nothing like mi-fi in reality due to extreme difference in battery life. I use this feature in 3G / HSDPA and in 5 minutes, I realized that my battery has drained around 5%! wow.. but well since it is not the main feature, I don't think we could complain about it anyway.

If you want to try a low end Android phone then this is definitely a choice. My choices for buying Android sorted by the budget are Optimus One, Nexus One, Nexus S, and Optimus 2X.

Conclusion? With the great price comes great device. So for this mid-end price, you get  a decent medium device. :) It's certainly much better than the Apanda A60 (Nexian Journey in Indonesia) or Samsung Galaxy 5. Also better than HTC Magic, Hero and Samsung Spica in my opinion.

Cheers!

BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 / Code Name Stratus Review

BlackBerry Pearl is one of the not-so-famous smartphone in the market. Unlike the mainstream type Bold 9700/9780, Curve 8520/9300 and Bold 9800, Pearl series is definitely having the least user of all BlackBerry.

I once used the 8100 and 8220 and for me, Pearl series suit me the best. It is sleek, tiny and fit comfortly in the jeans pocket :) BlackBerry 8100 and 8220 is now somewhat primitive, you can't use BlackBerry Messenger latest version (5 something something) in those devices. It will then only  displaying hourglasses over and over again. I don't know perhaps you still could use the ancient version (no display picture, no status), I haven't tried it.

But the point is compared to the latest Pearl before Stratus (its Kickstart), this 9100 is much much much much awesome. It's like Bold 9700 in smaller size. So it's a huge leap from the 82xx series.

The difference between the 9100 and 8100
Image courtesy of crackberry.com

Meanwhile in the Indonesia (perhaps APAC) version is using the traditional phone style abc keypads, the 9100 inherit the SureType keypad just like its predecessors. The buttons are all of course well designed and no doubt about it this is the best SureType BlackBerry ever (for now).

The difference between 9100 and 9105
Image courtesy of mobilegazette.com

The other plus side is that this is also the BlackBerry with 256MB RAM that is upgradeable to OS6. It's official not hybrids nor leaked. The performance? Awesome! :)

The camera quality is acceptable. Since Curve 8900 / Javelin, I believe all the 3,2 megapixels camera in BlackBerry is all with the same quality. The minus is the small display LCD which is contrary to its plus - the smaller size.

For those who doesn't know yet, this BlackBerry 9100 is 99% identical with BlackBerry 9105 except for the keypads. You could also swap the keypads but you need to reinstall the OS then.

Last thing is the battery life. In my usage :

- 10 email accounts, 4 is heavy traffic total around 800-900 emails per day

- SocialScope update every 2 hours

- 4 BlackBerry Groups 

- Less than  10 minutes call / day

The battery will last around 24 hours before it goes low battery (below 10). Neat compared to my 2 last BlackBerry - Storm and Tour - this is a ten. :)

Conclusion? Compared to the upcoming 99xx and 986x which I could not expose freely yet due to NDA, I still stick with this Pearl :) Perhaps with one Android phone.. but haven't decided it yet. Stay tuned!

@romeo_tango

Welcome to Tablet Era

There are a lot of pads and tabs nowadays, but only few of them make their mark in the gadget world. This year - at least until this July - are the Apple iPad 2, HTC Flyer, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 years. Well, there are more of their kinds, but in my opinion these three is on the top of the lines. (Sorry for PlayBook, but it's just not that into me right now).

Well, I actually won't review any of them right now. But just so you might be awared also that the UMPC era were long ago replaced by this tablets. They are sleek, powerful, full with connectivity, handy and fun. Where is UMPC? Does people even still know what UMPC is? :)

Despite of the iOS and Androids differences and similarities all of them could be as useful as whatever you want them to be for example : primary phone, word processing, multimedia player, game center, education center, web browser, ebook reader, digital frame or just as the paperweight. *smile

I actually not a fan of any tablets, because for me they are all just rather useless, redundant and bulky (no matter how thin it is). My advise is if you are going to have one, think carefully on what the main use is for. I have few friends buying iPads, Galaxy Tabs and PlayBook only lasted for few days before they sell it in the market. The reason for that to happen is simple, they didn't know what to do with their tablets. :D It's like a pesticide in a hand of programmer. *hyperbola

Cheers.

@romeo_tango

Motorola EX115 Hands On Review!

First of all, why dual-on GSM? Why now? After all this time, never crossed in my mind to use dual-on GSM phone. Until my BlackBerry primary network which using Telkomsel was 'broken'. I complained about how my signal reception is very good, I connected to BIS network (EDGE uppercase or 3G BlackBerry) but can't send a single 'hi' to anyone in my contact list. So I decide to use CDMA network in my Tour and its much better actually in my location.

So, I now have two GSM Sim Cards that I need to bring with me anywhere.  And my jeans pocket won't fit for another phone. After a search, I fall for this brown-thin-sleek Motorola EX115 (other choices are Lenovo Mobile which are just launched in Kelapa Gading last week).

In short, I finally then have the phone in my hand. As usual, nowadays the cellphone box is designed to the minimum. Thanks Apple for that. Motorola EX115 comes only with a travel charger and manual book. No cable data, no handsfree and of course no pouch or whatsoever. The phone design itself is good in my opinion. The material used is similar to the black version of Motorola Q8. It is plastic with semi-rubberized material which I haven't found out what the name is. It is quite thin and I could say it's the best compared to other MTK-phones (china manufactured - local brand).

My EX115

The phones come up with 3 Megapixels camera which gives you a decent image and it also have built-in timer and several effects (sephia, negative, sketch, etc). It's good to have it although its lack of flash and auto focus.

Here are some sample from camera shots :

Embossed Effect

White Inverted Effects

Move on to the most important part of this phone : QWERTY keypad. I've been using many of qwerty keypads from many phones. Sony Ericsson P910, Treo 650, Nokia E61, Motorola Q8, BlackBerry 8800, 8520, 9630 and this EX115 have the same sensation with the Q8. The button felt kinda hard but it's okay. Texting is easy using this phone. You type the message, add the recipient number, and then choose from which SIM you want to send the message. Same thing applies for making phone calls. Type the phone number and when you press dial, you will be asked from which SIM you want to start the call.

Next is the media player. I always thought the phone will have a very decent media player. But I was totally wrong. The Music Player in this phone comes with 3D surround and Bass Booster and it's very good! Reminds me of  ancient MotoROKR (Motorola E398) phone. It's definitely a plus point for this side. The phone also have microUSB slot and it is definitely also a plus because it could use my BlackBerry data cable and charger.

The minus? Have I mentioned even one the minuses? Yes nothing man ever made is perfect. The OS the EX115 comes with is most likely MTK-based. It's similar to most local brands and its not very user friendly when it comes to SYNC. You could sync the phone using the same PC Sync for other MTK's but it's very unfamiliar for me because these past years I was spoiled by the easiness of ActiveSync, iTunes, OviSuite and Google Sync. One of user also stated that he kind of disturbed by the backspace / delete button placement. When normally it's located below the letter 'p', EX115 put it in the left side of hung up button.

Well, besides of the sync issue, this phone is doing okay. The battery could last for around one and a half day in my usage. If you ever found one near your local store, my advise is buy it! Of course if you really need dual-on GSM phone. :)

@romeo_tango