HiPhone -Review

HiPhone -Review

Overview: The HiPhone, otherwise known as the CECT 132, the C-002, or the HiPhone i32, is among the latest Chinese iPhone clones. In case you are not familiar with this line, they have all of the features of the iPhone, except they've added bonuses like dual sim (two phone numbers), a removable battery, additional surround sound speakers, and a slide unlock feature which makes the phones accessible to any plan or carrier. You are not stuck with AT&T with this phone. More, this new model has added the very popular shake and tilt technology which means you can advance any media (songs, video, pictures, and wallpaper) by just shaking the phone. You do not need to scroll or look down. When you want to go to a full, wide screen, you only have to tilt the phone.

Appearance: Of all of the clones available, the HiPhone looks most like the original. It is sleek and modern. It's "99.9% iPhone" slogan is very accurate. It has the silver casing on the back with black on the front. However, it does not have the knock off apple logo on the phone. The name of the model is printed on the back of the phone and this serves as the logo.
Features: This phone has all of the features which makes the iPhone popular: Bluetooth, a 3.5 inch finger touch screen, MP3/MP4 players, a 2.0 mega pixel camera, a video recorder, fully functional smart phone capabilities, web browsing with WAP, GPRS, SMS, MMS, and voice mail, and 512 MB of memory with an additional 2GB that can be supported externally. The addition of the shake and tilt technology makes this phone very popular.

Functioning And Quality: This phone is very solid. It does not feel cheap in any capacity and it makes very good on its 99% iPhone promise. Of all of the clones available, this one performs as good as or better than any other.

Pricing: This model starts at about $150, but can vary greatly depending on where you get it. However considering all of the features and the AT&T savings, anything under $200 is probably a pretty fair price.

In a nutshell, this is a high quality phone with the latest technology available. It is very user friendly and has all of the sought after iPhone features with many extras that make it a great phone in its own right.

Samsung Ultra Touch - The 3G Mobile

Samsung Ultra Touch

At the GSMA World Congress, Samsung ensured that touch-screen phone fans would not be disappointed. Besides the Omnia HD and the Beat DJ, the company also introduced the Ultra Touch.

The Ultra Touch differs from the Beat DJ and Omnia HD by offering a numeric keypad for those who favor physical controls. Alternatively, you can use a virtual keypad when the phone is closed for texting and dialing.

The Samsung Ultra Touch in blue.(Credit: Samsung)
The 2.8-inch display supports 16 million colors. It's bright and vibrant, and you can take advantage of Samsung's TouchWiz interface. Below the display are Talk and End buttons and a diamond-shaped Back button. The first two controls are flush but the latter is tactile. The flat keypad comes in either red or blue.

You'll have to slide up the phone to expose the camera lens, self-portrait mirror, and flash. The rear face of the slider matches the keypad. A Micro-USB port and a camera shutter sit on the right spine, while a volume rocker rests on the right spine.

Features include a music player, an FM radio, assisted-GPS, stereo Bluetooth, and an 8-megapixel camera. For more pictures, peruse our Samsung slide show.

Nokia's messaging is free for Now

When Nokia launched the E75 in India, it also announced in its sidelines, the launch of its messaging service in the country.

That however was the official launch which of course meant that the service was available for us to use much before its launch . In far away Europe, Orange has tied up with Nokia to offer the same services, this time co-branded. The service is called Nokia Messaging By Orange and the intention is to provide access to push e-mail to all. The agreement for this was signed back in February and both the companies have agreed to expand the services to eight more countries.

Nokia's messaging service offers users single interface to access up to 10 email accounts on the same device. You can do everything you can do with a normal POP3 email account with the Messaging Service (branded or not!). You can read, send, forward and reply to emails, access subfolders, download and read attachments or attach files to emails.

Now, that is interesting. At the moment we are unsure about the charges that end users will need to shell out for using these branded services. Note that users usually pay a premium for branded services like this which usually have little to offer to users over what the plain-jane version (like the one available in India now) has.

At the moment, Nokia does not have any tie-up with an Indian operators so you can enjoy the services without paying premium charges. But note that this one is a data intensive application and you might end-up with a nice bill at the end of the month if you are on a data capped connection.

For those who are lucky (like me) who are on an unlimited connection, enjoy while it lasts! Head here to download and install the application. The site has a list of supported devices as well.