Smartphones are very fragile things and I’m sure everyone reading this article would have had at least once dropped their phones and would agree to this. However, there is a market of its own for smartphones that can withstand everything you throw at them and the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is the latest addition to this line of phones. Coming with a rugged design and IP67 certification, the Samsung Galaxy Xcover also impresses with some good specs. So being resistant to shock, dust and dirt aren’t going to be the only features this phone has to offer. Read on to find out if this is the phone for you.

Design
Just take a glance at the Samsung Galaxy Xcover and you will find that it means serious business when it says it’s going to take on the elements. It definitely isn’t going to win any accolades for having the most appealing design but it is one tough phone. It is not typical for a phone that is looking for a solid build to be made out of plastic, but the Samsung Galaxy Xcover still feels really solid in the hands albeit being made out of plastic. Measuring in at 4.8 x 2.6 x 0.47 inches makes sit feel like it’s a little big when held in your hands, nevertheless handling the phone with just one hand was still easy.  On the front, right under your screen, Samsung has fitted physical buttons under the screen instead of capacitive buttons which you would see on almost every other Android phone. This was a good move in our books as we found the buttons easy to find with our thumb.

The back of the phone is textured to give you extra grip, the first step to prevent you from dropping the phone. We also liked the ridges on the side but the phone does lack rubberized elements. It’s a surprising move since you see those elements on every other shock resistant phone out there. With the Samsung Galaxy Xcover, you are actually given the option of taking off the back cover, which is in place with a special lock. The phone also has removable covers that are able to protect the standard audio jack on the top of the phone and the mircoUSB port found on the bottom. On the right side of the phone is your power key while sitting on the left is the volume rocker. The microUSB port is sadly too deep into the phone that using a common microUSB cable might be tough. So be sure to carry the cable that this phone ships with whenever you travel.  The display onboard is of course scratch resistant and is 3.65 inches big. Flip the phone to reveal your 3.2 MP auto-focus camera with LED flash.

Features
The Samsung Galaxy Xcover may be a phone aimed at being a tough unbreakable machine, but it’s different from the other phones in the list as it’s not a feature phone but rather a smartphone. A single core Marvell MG2 CPU which runs at 800MHz is the one that powers this phone. Using live wallpaper is out of the question but apart from that, doing everything else was very smooth apart from slight hiccups now and then.

The OS is also another way this phone sets itself apart from its counterparts as it runs on Android v.2.3.4 Gingerbread. It also has Samsung’s GUI, Touchwiz running atop the OS. So that means you will not lose out on the seven homescreen feature when using the Samsung Galaxy Xcover. The grid-like application list is also found on the phone. Samsung throws in a few apps that will make using this phone more fun. One of the apps is AllShare, an app that allows you to move files wirelessly between your smartphone and any DLNA capable device. For music lovers, don’t worry, you are not left out as Samsung has Music Hub preinstalled so you can browse and purchase music whenever you like. Of course, social network users will never be left out as with the SocialHub app you will be connected all the time. So if you are not near a computer but cannot stay away from Facebook updates, then SocialHub will do the job for you. Polaris Office for all your document viewing purpose is a welcome addition as well. The screen maybe only 3.65 inches big but the on screen keyboard wasn’t tough to use. It was super responsive and you can get out those texts quickly.

The screen on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is probably rather disappointing especially since Samsung is known for its AMOLED screens. The 3.65 inch scratch-resistant screen just doesn’t make the cut for us. It only offers a 320 x 480 pixel resolution at that too. With numbers like that, it was no surprise that we had trouble reading fine text. Viewing angles were also bad and viewing the screen under sunlight is not so good either. To make it even worse, the colors are unsaturated as well.

We have always said that numbers don’t tell the true story when it comes to cameras, but a 3.2MP auto focus camera on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover definitely disappointed us. It does come with an LED flash and it’s nifty that you can use the flash as torchlight without needing separate software. The pictures taken on the camera was a tat bit gloomy but making small prints would still turn out ok. We also found the pictures to be lacking detail as well as being overexposed at times. However, there was nothing to complain about the camera interface as it had many modes to offer which includes panorama mode. You can also shoot videos at VGA resolution but you probably won’t as we didn’t like the output so much.

Browsing the internet with this phone was a pretty good experience. The browser on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is good as it does the job well like loading pages quickly and other navigational features like pinch-to-zoom work without any issues. Sadly though, there’s no support for Flash on this phone.

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover also does great in terms of performance. Although the earpiece produced some muffled sounds, but you will be able to get over that as the voices sound loud and distinct. You can turn up the volume to maximum and still expect the same results. Our friends on the other end had no problems whatsoever as they say we sounded clear as well. Opening the battery cover revealed a 1500mAh battery which should last you one day for average use.

Pros and Cons
Being a super tough phone is definitely a plus for the Samsung Galaxy Xcover. It is dust, water and shock resistant. It’s also got a solid feel to go with it.

The overall design may not be appealing to many. The camera should have been much better as its quality is that of a feature phone.

Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy Xcover is definitely one of a kind as it not only is a rugged phone but it also comes with some decent features to go with it. If you can get over the poor quality of the screen and camera, then this phone is definitely for you especially if you can’t afford to get a new phone every time you drop your phone.

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from Amazon.com Now!

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has already made its mark and is now being touted to be the best Android phones to grace the planet. Not to be left out from the competition to provide the best smartphone for consumers, Verizon has now released its own version of the phone, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. This phone has definitely got a lot of promise especially given the fact that it will be able to make full use of Verizon’s 4G LTE connectivity. Now it’s up to us to find out what the Verizon version of the phone can offer that its competitors can’t. So read on to find out.

Design
In terms of exterior design, there’s really nothing much to differentiate this phone from the GSM version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. So you can be forgiven if you couldn’t recognize this as the Verizon Galaxy Nexus the first time you pick it up as even the materials used for the phone are the same. However, at 5.33 x 2.67 x 0.37 inches, this phone is a mere 0.02 inches thicker than its GSM sibling. You wouldn’t really notice the difference in thickness in the Verizon Galaxy Nexus since it still feels as streamlined as the GSM one. Adding to that, the Hyper Skin finish on the back of the phone and its balanced weight makes it really comfortable sitting in your hand. Although the body might be of an all-plastic make, but we can assure that it feels solid and is built to last.

On the front of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is the 4.65 inch HD Super AMOLED screen which sports a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. Apart from that, on the front you will find that Android’s trademark capacitive buttons are missing. You also get a 1.3 MP front-facing camera which you can use to check your makeup and it can even record videos at 720p.  Apart from that, the camera can also be used for the new face unlock feature. On the right side of the phone is the power key while sitting on the left is the volume rocker. Much like most other Samsung Android phones, we loved using those buttons as they are exactly how you want them, not too easy to press – to avoid accidental presses – but at the same time not too hard either. On the bottom of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is the standard audio jack as well the microUSB port which in fact doubles as an MHL port for video-out purposes for instance. Flip the Verizon Galaxy Nexus to find a 5MP auto-focus camera on the back that also comes with LED flash.

Features
So what kind of a CPU is needed to power a beast such as the Verizon Galaxy Nexus? The answer to that is the 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4460 CPU, or at least that’s what Samsung thought. Sure, the CPU together with the 1GB of RAM breezed through all the simple tasks, but try working around the phone with live wallpaper and you will find some choppiness while navigating through the interface.

The Verizon Galaxy Nexus just like its GSM sibling is the first breed of phones to run on Android’s latest OS, the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This OS had a lot of people excited as Android looked to provide a brand new experience for smartphones with this OS. If you already own a tablet that runs on Android Honeycomb then using this OS shouldn’t be a problem right off the bat as you will find most UI elements applying similar logic as in Android Honeycomb. However, if you haven’t had any previous experience using Android Honeycomb, don’t worry; you will still be able to master this UI in a matter of hours. One of the things that haven’t changed is how the homescreen can be divided into a few pages. On each page you can choose what you would like to have from widgets to app shortcuts. One new feature that caught the eye is how you can create application folders just by bringing one app shortcut over another.

The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is also candy to the eyes as it looks very pretty too. However, that’s just on the surface of things as on the inside you find some major changes too like the removal of the context menu key. This key was there previously to show all the additional options for anything you were doing at the moment. Now these additional options can be found embedded into each app’s interface so that things look more streamlined and organized.  We also liked the changes that were mad to some of the applications like the People app that has a new UI. With this new UI, you get all the important details first minus all the stuff you don’t need.

As mentioned earlier, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65 inch HD Super AMOLED display and it’s the same kind of 720p display we have seen previously on phones like HTC Rezound for instance. Its resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels churns out a pixel density of 316 ppi meaning you get a great amount of detail from the phone. The screen also sports high-contrast and also gives some great colors. The viewing angles are also wide.

The Verizon Galaxy Nexus ships with a new camera interface as well and we like that it is easy to use.  There are many options to toy around with like the different scene modes and white balance. You also get Panorama mode with this new camera interface. Moving on to the camera itself, it’s a 5MP camera with LED flash. Yes it’s not an 8MP camera, but this camera proves that numbers don’t usually tell the big picture. Once we started snapping away, we found pictures taken outdoors turned out great and macro shots were amazing too. You also get a good amount of detail from the phone. We can surely live with the fact that the camera is not an 8MP one as it showed what it’s capable of. However, taking videos at 24 fps is definitely not acceptable as other high end phones are offering 30 fps. To make matters worse, artifacting and poor details were to be found when taking videos in low light situations.

Call quality had a good and a bad side to it on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. While there were no issues hearing our friend on the earpiece, things were not the same for our friends on the other end as they say our voices wasn’t natural. The Verizon Galaxy Nexus also comes with a powerful 1850 mAh battery, a good choice given that this is a 4G LTE connectivity smartphone. However, even with that battery you get only about 10 hours of average use, so if you are going to be using 4G all day, then you can expect the battery life to be less.

Pros and Cons
We definitely like the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich experience on the phone. The screen was also of the very best quality. Of course, 4G LTE connectivity being available was a plus too.

Battery life on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus should have been better. We would have also liked the camcorder to do much better.

Conclusion
Verizon Wireless being able to provide 4G LTE connections on its own version of the Galaxy Nexus will definitely a winning formula for a phone that’s already great on its own. So if you have the cash, then don’t think twice.

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Nokia is now seen as the phone manufacturer that is trying to claw its way back into the smartphone industry as it lost some ground to the other manufacturers who took the Android way right from the start. Nevertheless, Nokia 700 is not the phone that is meant to shoulder the burden of turning Nokia’s fate around but is rather meant to be a classy and compact phone. Running on the new Symbian Belle OS, this phone also sports a pretty decent list of specs.  So does this phone have the game to go with its style? Read on to learn more.

Design
The Nokia 700 is said to be Nokia’s most compact phone in terms of cubic inches and that is probably why when you hold the phone in your hands, it feels like you have the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray in your hands instead. Although measuring 4.33 x 1.97 x 0.38 inches means that the Nokia 700 is slightly thicker, but it is actually a tat bit shorter and less wide when compared to the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray. So you don’t have to worry about the size of your hands – especially ladies – as you will have no trouble breezing through this phone with one hand. This phone is compact both in terms of size and weight too as it tips the scales at only 100g.

It sports a 3.2 inch ClearBlack AMOLED display which has a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. Sure, it’s not the biggest screen out there, but as we mentioned earlier, this phone is not looking to grab the spotlight from super sized phones but rather be the small phone that is fit to do big things. Under the screen sits three physical buttons namely call, end and menu. The battery cover is metallic and it comes in various colors that you can choose so that it matches your phone’s chassis. That is one design feature that is going to be loved by those who want style from their phones. On the right of the phone, the phone exudes with class with its chrome-like lock button, volume rocker as well as the dedicated camera key. Sadly though, the buttons are not easily distinguished from the chassis, which can get a bit annoying at times. Meanwhile on the back of the phone is the 5MP camera.

Features
The Nokia 700 is powered by the same hardware as the Nokia 701 as it has the same 1GHZ CPU and also has the 512MB of RAM for extra speed while carrying out various processes on the phone. Although those numbers don’t point towards much these days, but we found it to be enough to power this phone with minor delays that were far and between. Nokia also throws in 2GB of internal memory.

Here we have another Nokia phone that runs on the Symbian Belle OS that is definitely up there with the likes of HTC Sense.  This OS offers you multiple homescreens, a common feature among most Android phones these days, but something that is pretty new with Nokia phones. The Nokia 700 also has widgets that have different sizes. You also have a swift pull-down notification bar that has your connectivity switches. You also get improved apps, both for Contacts and Calendar as you get a much more compact font so you can view more contact details in one page. A great feature since the screen is quite small.

As we already know, the Nokia 700 doesn’t have the largest screen in the business, but rather has a tiny – relative to present screen sizes – 3.2 inch screen. So as you can imagine, typing on the on-screen keyboard can be a bit tough. However, with the Nokia 700, it is comfortable to be held in both the landscape and portrait modes making your typing experience a lot better than you first expect. Adding to that, the distinct haptic feedback you get from the screen also makes you feel pretty good. This phone comes built in with the QuickOffice app so you can view and also edit your office documents on the go. Mobile Adobe Reader also comes out of the box to solve all your PDF needs. Next, with the World Traveler app, you can check your flight schedules while it also gives you unit conversion feature together with local weather reports.

On the front of the phone sits the 3.2 inch Clear Black AMOLED screen which we liked right away as it had good contrast levels and also produced saturated colors. The viewing angles were also great. The screen on the Nokia 700 also sports a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels and when you do the math, it gives you a pixel density of 220ppi which is pretty good. When you move outdoors, you can still make out most of the things on the screen as it is quite a bright screen.

On the back of the Nokia 700 is your fixed-focus 5MP camera with comes with LED flash. From the interface, you can adjust some things like contrast, exposure and sharpness. You can also turn on the face recognition mode. For those who like some effects on their pictures, you do get a few options like Sepia as well as Vivid mode. Moving on to the quality of the pictures taken, we found them to be out of focus and lacking details. Nevertheless, color reproduction was good. The camcorder recorded videos at 720p at a rate of 30fps which made the videos fluid. However, that wasn’t much of a use because there were a lot of artifacts.

Browsing the internet in the Nokia 700 is done using the Belle browser was a decent experience however you can expect some amount of choppiness and lag when you are doing all the navigational controls. Nevertheless, you still get a very own download manager and RSS feed reader which makes up for that. In terms of connection options, it is a GSM phone which has the usual stuff like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM Radio and A-GPS.

When making phone calls, audio quality was great both ways. Our friends could hear us clearly thanks in part to the active noise cancellation feature. This phone has a rather small battery with its 1080mAh battery as it will probably just last you one day with average use.

Pros and Cons
Nokia 700 is truly one compact handset and will win the hearts of many with that alone. It supports various video codec as well.

The camera was a downer on this phone and there is also no front-facing camera.

Conclusion
So for those who are on the hunt for a smartphone but cannot deal with huge sized phones and also like their phone to exude some style, Nokia 700 is definitely the way to go.

Buy Nokia 700 (White/Silver)from Amazon.com Now!

Android smartphones have flooded the smartphone industry and it has taken a strong foothold of the market too. However, you don’t see that many Android smartphones that have a portrait QWERTY design like what we are used to seeing with Blackberry phones. However, Motorola has decided to change that and has come out with the Motorola PRO+- an Android phone that has a QWERTY keyboard on the front. It is definitely aimed at business professionals but those who don’t quite like virtual keyboards will surely hit it off with this one as well. So let’s see what this phone is good for.

Design
This phone when compared with other portrait QWERTY keyboard sporting phones like the Samsung Galaxy Y Pro or the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is definitely a tat bit bigger. However, even when it measures 4.7 x 2.44 x 0.46 inches Motorola PRO+ still fits comfortably in the hand as it has a curved bottom side and round edges. Apart from that, this phone weighs about 113 grams making it a really light phone to be carrying around. The reduced weight may be due to the fact that it is made out of plastic, but that’s no reason to worry as it still feels solid in our hands.  The soft touch finish on the back gives extra grip and at the same time it also keeps the dust and fingerprints away. The back of the Motorola PRO+ has a pretty looking wave pattern too. The 3.1 inch screen on the front is also one that catches the eye with its 480 x 680 pixels resolution.

Right below that screen sit the four capacitive Android buttons that have become a trademark with Android phone these days. Looking at the buttons and ports on this phone, we have the power key and the standard audio jack on the top side of the phone. Meanwhile, on the left is the microUSB port. Finally on the right is the volume rocker which we find to be well designed as it is easily distinguishable from the chassis even without having to look at it. The QWERTY keyboard on the front might take some getting used to, but that doesn’t take too long. After using it for a few days, you will start enjoying sending texts with this phone although you might need the help of both hands to do that as the keys aren’t shaped for single hand use. Finally, on the back of the Motorola PRO+ is the 5MP camera which we will talk about more a little later.

Features
The Motorola PRO+ is powered by a single-core MSM7230 CPU that runs at 1GHz to get your job done. Some might argue this is a far cry from the dual-core processors that power the Android phones of the present, but numbers don’t always tell the true story. Once we used the phone, we found the processor to be more than capable of getting the job done smoothly.

Android v2.3.5 Gingerbread is the OS of choice for this phone and there is a custom interface that runs over it. As most other phones, Motorola PRO+ also offers seven customizable homescreens and each dock have four icons. From these icons, you can actually decide what you would like to do with three of them and the last one is left out for the app drawer. Although there is a QWERTY keyboard that most of you might like to use, for other times, you can also use the on-screen virtual keyboard. The keyboard is made available to you when you are using the Motorola PRO+ in landscape mode. The physical keyboard will be the way to go when you want to type long emails, but when you are using an app in landscape mode and just have to key in a few words, the virtual keyboard will come in handy. It also has an auto-correct feature that we really liked as it worked well.

The Motorola PRO+ comes with many widgets preinstalled and it covers all the basics like weather information, email and of course social networking. One of the apps we found pretty nifty was the 7digital music marketplace which can be used to buy music straight from the smartphone. If you are a fan of Kies Air that comes with Samsung phones, well then you might like the Phone Portal app that Motorola provides with this phone as it lets you manage your device over Wi-Fi. The social networking hub is also great in tackling all your social networking updates. Finally, Quickoffice is definitely one very useful app to have especially for those business users who want to get some work done on the fly.

On the front of the phone is the 3.1 inch screen which sports a resolution of 480 x 640 pixels. The screen on the Motorola PRO is quite bright so you won’t have any trouble using it under the sun. We also got colors that looked natural plus the black tones were amazing too. Thanks to the 258ppi pixel density, details are amazing. However, it does have poor viewing angles.

So moving on to the back of the phone, we see the 5MP camera on the Motorola PRO+ which comes with LED flash too. The pictures taken on a sunny day were ok as there was a lot of detail to be found in the pictures with minimal digital noise too. However, colors look washed out as the camera does overexpose pictures at times. When we moved indoors, pictures took a turn for the bad as the camera struggled to focus on objects. Moving on to video, it records videos at 720p and the videos were not too bad.

Web browsing on the Motorola PRO+ was a little disappointing even though it was using the Android stock browser. This is because navigation functions like zooming and panning seemed to lag quite a bit. Although it supports Flash, you might want to keep it off as it seriously affects your browser’s performance. In terms of connectivity options, we have the usual stuff like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and FM radio.

Motorola PRO+ does a decent job in terms of performance as we can hear our friends clearly on our end. Meanwhile, they had no trouble hearing us as well as there is a secondary microphone to get rid of all the background noise. Meanwhile, the phone is rated to give 8 hours of talk time which is not too bad.

Pros and Cons
The Motorola PRO+ has a very good screen which produces great details.  It also has a great physical QWERTY keyboard and at the same time has good in-call quality.

The internet experience was not too good as the browser was a major downer. The 5MP camera could have been better too.

Conclusion
Motorola PRO+ definitely turned out to be a great entry-level phone for business professionals but it could have been a lot better if it could give better browsing experience. So if internet is somehow not what you are looking for and you can settle for the QWERTY keyboard – which is great by the way – then this phone will do you a lot of good.

Adding to the line of Samsung’s Windows phone smartphones is the Samsung Omnia W. If you have been keeping to up to date with the new phones released in the US then you might have mistaken this phone for AT&T’s Samsung Focus Flash as they look the same if not for some minor differences. Given that this is a mid-range smartphone the specs are therefore not your dual core processors or your giant sized screens but rather a decent offering. So would this Samsung Focus Flash look alike be able to woo the crowd just like its US counterpart? Let’s find out.

Design
Samsung Omnia W measures in at 4.57 x 2.31 x 0.43 inches and with these dimensions it really proves to be another one of Samsung’s compact and slim phones. Tipping the scales at just 115 grams even with the cool looking metal element on the back cover, this phone is definitely one of the lighter phones out there. Thanks to its size and also the tapered edges on the phone, you will be able to handle the Samsung Omnia W with just one hand with ease. Of late we have been flooded with Windows Phone operated Samsung phones that have the Super AMOLED Plus screen. However, the Samsung Omnia W sports a 3.7 inch Super AMOLED screen making it a little different from the rest of the pack. The three customary Windows Phone navigational keys are found under the screen with the Home button made to be a physical one.

It is common practice among phone manufacturers to let the camera interface to do the job rather than providing a dedicated camera button for snapping pictures. Nevertheless, with the Samsung Omnia W, you will find a dedicated camera key on the right side of the phone. Completing the right side is the power button. Meanwhile, on the left side sits the volume rocker while on top is your standard audio jack. At the bottom is the microUSB port. Turn the phone around and on the back is your 5MP camera which comes with LED flash.

Features
As stated earlier, this is no high end phone, so you can forget about that dual-core processor or anything of the like. Nevertheless, the Samsung Omnia W has a 1.4GHz single-core CPU that is more than adequate to do the job. You need to test it to believe it as we were amazed as well that we experienced such smooth navigation on this phone. The response you get from every click is simply brilliant.

Samsung Omnia W runs on the Windows Phone Mango which means there is a lot to love about this phone. For starters, you can perform multitasking, get deeper integration for your social network accounts and also get Internet Explorer 9 out of the box. Just like switching between tabs on a web browser, you can now change between apps just as easily on this phone. All you have to do is hold down the Back button and in your screen you will see a snapshot of all the running applications arranged side-by-side and from here you are free to jump to the application that you wish to use. Jumping between Windows app are a breeze but sadly Windows still has not fixed the lag issues that you face when you want to jump to a third-party software when using this feature.

People hub has not only maintained the previous feature of showing all the recent social networking updates from a contact but it has not added this thing called the History tab. What this tab does is that it compiles your previous communications with that contact, be it emails or calls or anything else for that matter. Some may say that using a virtual keyboard on a 3.7 inch screen might be a pain, but with the Samsung Omnia W, things are different. The keyboard is designed to be simple but at the same time effective in getting the job done.

The Samsung Omnia W sports a 3.7 inch Super AMOLED display and it offers a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels which as a result churns out a very decent 252ppi pixel density. The screen also performs well outdoors as it is bright enough. The colors are well saturated and it produces some sharp images too. Sadly though, since it is using the PenTile matrix, you find that there is some effect on the screen’s sharpness. We also get the pitch blacks and high contrast that we are used to getting from AMOLED screens. The viewing angles were also great making this one complete package.

They say numbers aren’t always the best indicator but is that the case with Samsung Omnia W’s 5MP camera? Truth be told, it is definitely not an 8MP shooter but it does a pretty good job if you ask us. The amount of detail you get from your pictures was good and you also don’t get too much digital noise in your photos. However, it’s not all rosy as there was in issue with moving objects as they appeared a little blurred. The LED flash which also doubles as the video light actually does a decent job in lighting up your pictures enabling us to get some good details from the camera. The camcorder records at 720p HD resolutions at a rate of 30fps. The results obtained had good details and we liked the fact that there were some preset scene modes for you to choose from too.

Browsing the internet was fund with the Internet Explorer 9 mobile browser as things loaded in a jiffy always. All you navigational functions like zooming and panning around the page felt smooth and easy to do. However, there is still no support for Flash. The available connectivity options on the Samsung Omnia W are Wi-Fi, Blueetooth and A-GPS. Sadly though there is no HDMI port to allow you to connect to larger screens.

Call quality on the Samsung Omnia W was also quite good as the voices sound loud and clear on both ends with just a little bit of digitizing that may actually go unnoticed too. Onboard this phone is a 1500mAh battery to provide all the juice this baby needs. It is a decent offering and it will take you through a day with average use.

Pros and Cons
The Samsung Omnia W is a compact and lightweight phone that is bound to be loved by many. The phone also is very fast and smooth in operation plus it has some good in-call audio quality.

The major downer with this phone is the inability to expand storage.

Conclusion
Albeit being a mid range phone, in our opinion the Samsung Omnia W is a truly good phone that does the job with amazing speeds. Given it’s affordable price tag, this in one solid phone.

Buy Samsung Omnia Wfrom Amazon.com Now!

HTC Titan has definitely been named aptly as the 4.7 inch display onboard this beast is truly of a size that is fit only for titans. HTC has had some success with previous phones that run on Microsoft’s Windows Phone like the HTC Trophy and HTC Surround and with the HTC Titan they look to add another phone to that list. This smartphone runs on the Windows Phone Mango and looks set to be a phone that would be remembered by many. However will it be remembered for being a great phone or otherwise? Let’s find out.

Design
The HTC Titan measures in at 5.18 x 2.78 x 0.39 inches which is some huge numbers especially in terms of its width.  So one look at this phone and you are definitely to be intimidated and also left wondering how on earth you are going to hold it in your hands. However, pick it up and worry no more. It’s really slim and thanks to its sturdy metallic casing it feels solid in your hands too. Of course you might say that the metallic shell gives the phone a little bit more weight, but given the protection you get in return, we say it’s worth every pound. It was not too long ago that we thought smartphones wouldn’t go much larger than 4.3 inch screens but that was probably a prediction we made too soon.
Now we have a phone in our hands that sports a 4.7 inch WVGA S-LCD screen that has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. Surprisingly, even though the screen was already pretty huge, we would think that HTC would try to cramp everything else on the front. However, that is not the case here and you actually get a good amount of space between the screen and the capacitive buttons underneath. This is great as you don’t make any accidental presses. Above the screen, you will find the narrow earpiece as well as the front facing 1.3MP camera. On the right side of the HTC Titan you will find a two-level shutter key for you camera together with the volume rocker. On the top are your power button and the standard audio jack. Meanwhile on the left sits the microUSB port. Flip the phone and on the back you will find your 8MP auto-focus camera which also comes with a dual-LED flash.

Features
So what is it that powers this smartphone? The CPU that has the task of powering the HTC Titan is a third generation Quallcomm Snapdragon processor, the single-core Qualcomm MSM8255 CPU which clocks in at 1.5GHz. Not only that, the phone is also blessed with a 512MB RAM. If these specs don’t get you excited, you have to try the phone and it will prove you wrong. This is because the HTC Titan runs ever so smoothly be it when opening apps or doing anything else for that matter.

The HTC Titan runs on the same OS as the HTC Radar, that is the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and as expected they are pretty much the same. It also sports the latest version of HTC Hub so that you still get the Sense UI feel that is what everyone loves most on a HTC phone. This OS adds some visual improvements and at the same time better functions too. Just like previous phones, you get two main screens one being your homescreen and the other one for your apps. It still has the live tiles on the homescreen that work as either a shortcut or a notification based on how you set them. On the other screen you are presented with the list of apps found on the phone. You can pin them to the start menu with a long press too. Windows Phone has been able to dish out some amazing messaging experiences previously and with the HTC Titan it gets supersized thanks to the supersized screen.  The extra large screen gives us a keyboard that is spacious and put that together with the responsiveness the phone has to offer, the messaging experience on this phone is just out of this world. Windows Phone 7.5 Mango also provides a better email experience as well as it is not only more refined with the universal inbox system it is also extremely easy to set up.

The highlight of this phone has to be the 4.7 inch WVGA S-LCD screen which takes up almost the whole front side of the HTC Titan. For such a huge screen, the resolution does not cut it which shows when you are trying to view small text. However, all is not lost as you still get amazing colors, good viewing angles as well as a very bright screen.
On this phone, you find an 8MP auto-focus camera that looks built to take great pictures just like other HTC phones of late. It also comes with dual-LED flash, wide angle F2.2 lens as well as backside illumination. The photos taken on this camera are not the best, but they are pretty good. We get good details on pictures that are taken both outdoors and indoors. Color reproduction could have been better but it isn’t exactly bad out of the box. The camcorder records at 720p but it doesn’t do very good. This is because it lacks detail causing some very muddy playback.

There are many reasons to like the web browsing experience on the HTC Titan that you tend to forget that there is no Flash support. We loved how smooth the whole browsing experience was especially when we were navigating through pages. It also offers HSPA+ speeds to top it all off. Since this a GSM phone, you could use it anywhere in the world. The HTC Titan also comes with the usual connectivity options like aGPS, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR as well as Wi-Fi with the mobile hotspot feature.

In terms of how the phone performs with call quality, it was a downer. This was because voices on both ends sounded hollow. Nevertheless things change when you turn on the speakerphone as it offers good volume output. The 1600mAh battery does a good job as you can get a day out of it with every charge.

Pros and Cons
The HTC Titan is built to last and we definitely like that solid feeling. The screen offers some vivid colors. For a phone powered by a single-core processor, it is super responsive too.

HTC Titan could definitely use a much better resolution as it only churns out 200 ppi with its present resolution. Video recording was also not up to our standards.

Conclusion
HTC Titan is a good Windows Phone and its huge screen will definitely win over a lot of people.  At $200 on contract, it is definitely a great offering.

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Design

The Nokia Lumia 800 would definitely remind you of the Nokia N9 as they look very much like each other. However there are some differences that would help you tell the phones apart. For instance, the Nokia N9 had the front fully covered with a 480 x 854 resolution screen but on the Nokia Lumia 800, you will find three capacitive buttons under the screen. The result of this is a slightly smaller screen at 3.7 inches with a slightly lower resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. However it is still Nokia’s Clear Black AMOLED display and is protected by the strong Gorilla Glass. The Nokia Lumia 800 measures 4.59 x 2.41 x 0.48 inches making it a wee bit smaller than the Nokia Lumia 710.

Another thing that reminds us of the Nokia N9 with this phone is the polycarbonate unibody design which is again of very high quality. However we managed to spot two major differences with this phone and that is the fact that it comes with a physical camera button as well as a repositioned flash. The dedicated camera button is definitely a welcome addition as it helps us take photos quickly. However this means one more extra button on the already packed right side. On the right of the phone we already have the power button and the volume rocker. On the top you will see the microSIM card and microUSB port together with the standard audio jack. Flip the phone and on the back sits an 8MP f2.2 camera which has Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash.

Features

So what powers this smartphone? Inside the Nokia Lumia 800 is a Quallcomm MSM8255 single core CPU that clocks in at 1.4GHz. The processor is capable of tackling most tasks with ease. However, when you use apps that requires a lot of processing power that is when you see the other side of the processor. Although it lags when using these apps it is not too obvious to the extent that you will start hating the phone. The Nokia Lumia 800 also is a little tardy when you try to transfer huge amounts of data from memory to storage.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is another Nokia phone that sports Windows Phone 7.5 OS instead of Nokia’s out of favor Symbian OS. The decision to stick with Windows Phone 7.5 OS is a good one as you get a more modern feeling from the phone plus you can also navigate through the phone easily as it is very user friendly. This version of the OS is an improved one and it gives Nokia Lumia 800 some of the basic things people look for these days like multi-tasking capability, deeper social networking integration as well simple things like copy and paste. Unlike other phones that have up to seven homescreens, this OS sticks two one homesceen and one other screen for its apps. On the homescreen you will find live tiles that are either shortcuts to an app or an app specific notification. To get to the apps screen, just slide the homescreen to the left. Over here you see all your apps, and depending on what you prefer, these apps can be pinned to the start menu too. Another cool thing we picked up in this OS is the multi-tasking pane that pops up when you long press the back button. In this pane, you get to look at the apps that are currently open. Nokia of course has slotted in some apps or their own. The newest of the lot found on the Nokia Lumia 800 is the Nokie Drive – a voice guided GPS app. Now you don’t have to fork out big bucks to get an awesome GPS product. With this app, you can even cache your maps so that you are ready for that drive across US.

Nokia Lumia 800 sports a 3.7 inch screen with a WVGA resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. This screen may not be the biggest screen out there as you may already know, but the Clear Black AMOLED display does not fail to impress. It produces beautiful looking images and thanks to the processor, the screen is also very responsive to touch making it a delight to use.

There is another feature on the Nokia Lumia 800 that is the same as the Nokia N9, and that is the 8MP autofocus camera. You would expect the results from the cameras to be the same, but that’s not the case here. The Nokia N9 did give a pretty good all round performance but it lacked detail, however with the Nokia Lumia 800 we get amazing details but there seems to be problems in handling noise. The camera does produce pictures with great color reproduction and contrast levels were decent too. Indoors, the camera does a better job when you turn the LED flash on. Video recording is done at 720p HD resolution. Videos performed better as the recordings were smooth and the audio was good too.

Web surfing on a Windows phone would obviously have to be done on an Internet Explorer browser. That is exactly what happens with the Nokia Lumia 800 and the results are great as loading time is short and navigational functions like scrolling and zooming can be done easily. Sadly though there is no support for Flash. Moving on to the connectivity options, the Nokia Lumia is a GSM phone and also a tri-band 3G phone which comes with the usual stuff like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

The phone performs well too when it came to call quality. Our friends on the other end of the line said they heard us loud and clear but it’s not all rosy as what we got on our end wasn’t the clearest piece of audio. Battery life seems to be an issue with the Nokia Lumia 800 as it is different from the other Nokia and Windows phones that have amazing battery life. If you are an average user, you will be able to use the phone for almost the whole day before you will need a recharge.

Pros and Cons

The Nokia Lumia 800 is well designed and solid in the hands. We like the Nokia apps that are onboard this phone. Even with a single-core processor, the phone performs its job smoothly.

This smartphone is slightly expensive for its set of specs. We would have also liked a better battery life.

Conclusion

This phone is just the first of many phones that we are soon to see coming out of Nokia’s stables. Nokia Lumia 800 definitely shows that Nokia is on its way up. So if you have the cash then this phone will do the job for you.

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Design
This burgundy beauty in our hands measured in 4.72 x 2.24 x 0.53 inches and would definitely sway the hearts of many towards it as it looks great. Those measurements point to a slightly thick phone, but that’s to be expected as this phone has a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard hidden. However it is not going to be a burden to carry around as it’s only 4.94oz. Sony Ericsson Xperia mini’s keyboard gets a chrome-like finish around it to make it a tat bit more stylish. This phone comes with a 3.7 inch LCD Reality Display with a resolution of 480 x 854 and also coming with the Mobile BRAVIA Engine Sony is known for. Under the screen, instead of the semi-cricular home button that has become a trademark for Xperia phones, the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro instead has three arched Android keys.

Sony has the got the keyboard for this phone spot on as it not only has the keys well spaced but it also somehow has a classic feel to it with its long space bar and full set of arrow keys. The keyboard also pops out and back in easily without feeling like it might break apart thanks to the spring-loading mechanism. However, we didn’t like how the keys were quite clicky and also lacked key travel. We would have also liked to see some shortcut keys that we could program. On the left you will see the power button as well as the standard audio jack. Meanwhile on the right sits the volume rocker together with the microHDMI port that is covered with a protective flap. There are more things on the right too, like the two-stage shutter button as well as the LED notification light. On the back sits the 8MP Exmor R camera with the word ‘XPERIA’ carved out in the middle of the back as well.

Features
Sony Ericsson Xperia pro comes with a 1GHz Snapdragon S2 processor which definitely does a great job in tackling the tasks thrown at it.  Add the 512MB RAM onboard and you get the best GUI after HTC, the Timescape running extremely smooth. Sony also gives 1GB of ROM for you to install apps and there is also an 8GB microSD card out of the box just to give you more space.

On this phone the Timescape UI is running atop the Android v2.3.4 Gingerbread which is if you remember almost similar to what we have previously seen with the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S. There is a five pane homescreen and have four docked shortcuts. You can view these shortcuts on all of you five homesceens and you can manually change them to either be one icon or a folder with a few items in them. Much like the helicopter view in HTC Sense, Timescape has its own similar eye candy called Overview mode. In this mode, you pinch to zoom out of one of the 5 homescreen panes and you get a cool transition which takes you to a new screen. At the same time, all your widgets gather there allowing you to pick which one you want to use on that screen. The Sony Ericsson Xperia pro has its very own widgets too like the Timescape widget as well as a widget for photos and videos which resembles the Mediascape from previous models. At the app launcher, you will find the shortcuts at the bottom corners and you are also allowed to arrange the icons on the grid as you like. If you are feeling lazy you can always choose automatic options. This way the apps will be arranged either in alphabetical order or in the most used to least used order.

The screen on the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro is probably the one with the best viewing angles of the whole Xperia line of phones although you do get some fading when you go over 45 degrees like we saw with the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc. This 3.7 inch Reality Display LCD screen offers a resolution of 480 x 854 and that churns out a decent pixel density of 265ppi.The screen also is bright and even gives good color when used outdoors. Thanks to Sony’s Mobile BRAVIA Engine you also get some amazing colors and contrast from the screen.

Moving on to the camera onboard the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro, we have an 8MP Exmor R which comes with a cool camera interface that has much to offer. There are various scene modes that you can choose from and there are also features like 2D and 3D Panorama. Photos taken were ok with colors being on the warmer side. Pictures did lack some detail and when we took pictures indoors, colors were not accurate. The LED flash doesn’t do enough to help either. The camcorder shoots at 720p HD at a rate of 30fps and also lacks detail in its recordings.

Browsing the internet on the Sony Ericsson was a smooth ride as we had a very good browser. Adding to that, the good processing speeds onboard allowed for quick scrolling and panning. You also get support for Flash and since you don’t have to click on the screen but rather use the QWERTY keyboard, the 3.7 inch screen looks just about the right size. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, DLNA and FM Radio.

Moving on to the voice quality of the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro, we got some clear and loud voices on both ends. This was in part thanks to the noise cancelling mics that filtered out background noise well. The battery is also capable of powering your phone for a whole day if you are an average user. However, rated at a talk time of about 7 hours in 3G mode, this was definitely below average.

Pros and Cons
The Sony Ericsson Xperia pro comes with a good keyboard and also has decent call quality. It also ran smoothly all the time.

The camera was a major downer and some of the keys were too small.

Conclusion
True to the Xperia line, the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro is another good looking phone and that is not something you get too often with smartphones these days that are built just to get the job done. So if you are in for some power and style at the same time, go out and get this phone.

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