Can HTC AMAZE 4G Amaze You?

HTC AMAZE 4G http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
I depends on who you are. HTC AMAZE 4G certainly will not amaze, the reviewer at Engadget, who many a comments on the post thought was biased. Perhaps he is hot off his Apple loving.
But we here have learned a bit about reviews, use the hard work of biased reviewers and deduce your own ideas about the product. At the end reviews are supposed to empower you, with knowledge.
So HTC Amaze 4G review at Engadget gives a good look in to the HTC Amaze 4G and after going through the entire review, we think it is a very good phone, one of the best around. It may not be fantastic phone like the iPhone 4S that is shining in my hand but at $250 phone with 1GB of RAM and dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 CPU with 16GB memory underneath of a 960 X 540 Screen is a damn good. Then count in the NFC (iPhone does not have it yet) 1740Mah battery, dual cameras with rear facing as good as iPhone 4S, an 8MP, MicroSD card slot make it a more than what the reviewer thinks it is.
Head over to Engadget and extract the best out of the wacky review. If you like it, you can get it at T-Mobile.
Engadget (Volpe, what ever you are smoking, hang on to it, it is very good! Added by Diordna)

Pre Release iPhone 5 Love, Where is it? Not In The Markets!

iPhone 5 http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
With ever increasing Android phones, looking and doing better or equal to what iPhone does, there are so much that iPhone 5 can bring us.
Just without thinking much deeper, two enhancements that iPhone 5 could bring are NFC and a Front facing camera. But those to have existed on Android phones for ages. So only thing Apple could do is to make enhancements like those two more sexier. But how sexier could NFC on iPhone be? Front facing camera, that can certainly be done by not doing what Apple did with iPad 2
Yes I halted a purchase of a new phone in anticipation of iPhone 5 but if Apple cannot show that it is worth my money, I would turn to an Android phone in a blink. Perhaps I might even think of an iPhone 4, or iPhone 4S that is circulating around rumor mills.
It seems it is not only me but investors too have changed their tunes towards iPhone launch. According to WSJ, the traders are not making money in the pre release market of iPhone 5 like they did in the previous iPhone releases;

Money is Usually Made Leading Up to iPhone Event but Not in 2011. WithApple set to announce the iPhone 5 this Tuesday (October 4), we analyzed the stock price performance around prior iPhone launches.
Looking overApple's stock price performance surrounding the past four iPhone launches,the real money was made leading up to the iPhone event. In each of the pastfour years, Apple stock has always moved higher in the two weeks prior to theiPhone event, however, this year appears to be the exception with an 8%decline in Apple's stock price (vs. down 6% for S&P 500) registered ahead ofthe October 4 event.

How Apple is doing in the market (Also you will notice everybody else is also in the same boat.)
WSJ

Nokia Symbian Belle Range, Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 smartphones Announced!

Nokia Symbian Belle Range http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/



Nokia today announced the launch of three feature-packed, mass market smartphones, bringing the latest smartphone functionality at attractive price points and including market-leading innovation with Symbian Belle. The Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 extend the range of available designs, features and functionality in the Nokia Symbian smartphone range. Symbian Belle powers all three, with single-tap NFC technology sharing and pairing, the most personal user interface so far and a more powerful mobile Web browsing experience. As well as allowing content to be shared between devices, NFC capabilities allow any of the three new smartphones to pair with NFC-enabled mobile accessories such as speakers or Bluetooth headphones and headsets. To extend the range of available NFC-enabled accessories, Nokia is also announcing the launch of the Nokia Essence Bluetooth Stereo Headset, which can be paired with any NFC-enabled smartphone simply by tapping the two devices together.

While all three smartphones contain recognizable Nokia features, they each represent a very distinct set of priorities to allow users to choose what matters most in a smartphone. The most compact touch screen monoblock smartphone in the world (Nokia 700); a sleek and stylish smartphone with the world's brightest mobile display for indoor or outdoor use (Nokia 701), and Nokia's loudest entertainment smartphone (Nokia 600) all bring firsts to the Nokia product portfolio.

"After bringing exciting new features to the Symbian user experience only two months ago with Symbian Anna, we are now driving the platform even further with our most competitive Symbian user experience ever," said Ilari Nurmi, Vice President at Nokia. "Symbian Belle and the three new handsets we are launching today show our commitment to continue delivering Symbian products that allow people to choose what is most important to them in terms of user experience, design, functionality and price. These will not be last products or updates we will deliver on Symbian."

"With the announcement today Nokia has made it clear that Symbian will continue to play an important role in its product portfolio along side Windows Phone 7" said Nick McQuire IDC. "There is a sense of urgency in the way improvements and innovation are being delivered to the platform that demonstrates how committed Nokia is to make Symbian products a competitive smartphone choice."



Symbian Belle



Symbian Belle is the latest in a series of planned software updates to the Symbian platform, which started with Symbian Anna and will continue into 2012. Symbian Belle increases the number of home screens from three to six providing more room to display applications and services. Live widgets, now come in five different sizes, making the home screens come alive and giving users more flexibility to personalize the user experience. It also includes a pull down menu and taskbar to access notifications from any of the home screens and further enhancements to the Web browsing experience. All in all, Symbian Belle provides Nokia's most competitive, seamless and intuitive Symbian experience so far.



One of Symbian Belle's most exciting features is the single-tap NFC sharing and pairing capability. This allows contacts, videos and images to be shared with other NFC-enabled devices and smartphones, as well as pairing with NFC-enabled mobile accessories such as speakers and headsets. Gaming fans also benefit from the NFC capabilities of the new handsets with the ability to unlock additional levels in Angry Birds or find a hidden blade in Fruit Ninja just by touching two NFC-enabled devices together. On the Nokia 701 smartphone, which comes preloaded with Asphalt 5, two friends can even pair to compete on the same racetrack.



Nokia Essence Bluetooth Stereo Headset

The new Nokia Essence Bluetooth Stereo Headset uses special active noise cancellation technology to eliminate an unprecedented 99.8% of background noise - delivering pure, high-fidelity sound no matter how noisy the surroundings for people who don't want to sacrifice audio quality when going wireless. Using NFC technology, the Bluetooth headset can be paired with any NFC-enabled smartphone simply by tapping the two devices together.

NFC + EverNote = Touchnote, An Android App

NFC + EverNote = Touchnote http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/

We all know many Android phones have NFC (Near Field Communication) capabilities built in. There are many uses for it like paying for your train ticket, pay at any counter, exchange your patient record to name a few. Think of Google Wallet

Now you can add note taking to the long list of NFC capabilities and NFC enabled apps, thanks to Touchnote, an Android app from the Montreal-based startup Wiseleap, the app took home the $50,000 grand prize at Evernote’s recent developer conference in San Francisco.

The app allows you to pull out Evernote notes just by waving or tapping your Android Device, Adevice, near a tag (NFC Sticker) provided by Wiseleap. You also need the mobile app.

Best use for this app would be (for Me) to have a tags on my notice board, bulletin board and/or desk called by various meetings I need to attend.

Wave the Android Tablet or the phone by one of these tags and I will know exactly what is needed to carry to the meeting, what is needed to be done at the meeting etc.

For Moms, or for that matter Dads, can have a tag on the fridge associated with shopping list, wave the phone by it, modify the shopping list by opening the fridge or by looking around the kitchen and can be on the way for a perfect shopping experience.

You can get both the app and tags from Wiseleap and make sure you have a phone with NFC enabled, like Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy S II. You will be the king of note taking.

Now where did I put those tags?

Wiseleap via TechCrunch

iPhone5 Rumors Keep Adding, NFC, A5 Processor And So On

iPhone 5 http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
I guess untill Apple comes out with a definitive answer regarding the iPhone 5, there will be more rumors.The latest comes fro China Times and according to them the device is in production state and has an improved antenna and a metal case or chassis and will be ready to launch in third quarter of 2011.
There is also information about NFC (Near Field Communication) chip to be coupled with an e-wallet service allowing users to leave their wallets behind. Like in Japan where most of the monitory transactions like buying a railway or bus ticket, a cup of coffee or many other stuff offered in vending machines are done with ones phone. The Google Nexus S and Google Nexus S 4G already has the NFC chips embedded so it is only natural that iPhone keeps up! :)
In addition to the antenna correction (remember the antennagate) the iPhone 5 screen will also have more real estate with an 4" screen instead of 3.5 inch that they have now.
Next improvement comes from the processor and will have tha same processor as the iPad 2, a dual core A5 processor.
The China Times als speaks of an Apple manufacturing plant in Brazil, dedicated to producing Apple product which plans to begin production in 2013.
China Times (Translated)

Apple Keeping Up With Androids, Adds NFC Chips To iPhone 5 And iPad.2

#NFC Chips On #iPhone5 And #iPad2 http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Paying with the phone is very common in countries like Japan. You can pay for bus, train tickets or stuff from vending machines with the cell phone. In US the practice is very rare but merchants like Starbucks is finding a way to use phone to pay for coffee.
Android phones like Google Nexus S already carries NFC ( Near Field Communication) chip, which is the main ingredient needed for using the phone to pay for your daily needs, just like a credit or debit card, or becoming an e-wallet. NFC chips transmit and receive information, in short range, like four to five inches.
So the word on street is that Apple will have these chips on iPhone 5 and iPad 2, which people expect to see in the mid 2011. So the experts assume the NFC application will soon follow.
Be it Android or iPhone, the $6.2 trillion, Americans spend with their credit cards, has lot of companies showing interest on NFC enabled phones. From credit card companies like VISA, Master Card and e-payment companies like Paypal has a lot to gain and so are the advertising companies like Apple with iADs and Google with AdWords / AdSense. NFC chips will allows all sort of wonders with phones. But in the case of Paypal, you don't want your phone frozen by Paypal, at least not me! But in some shops in Palo Alto, CA, you can buy your lunch with your Android Phone, and Bling Nation's NFC-chipped BlingTag coupled with Paypal.

Credit CNet

Apple has already hired Benjamin Vigier, who worked on the technology at mobile-payment provider MFoundry and prepping a prototype payment terminal for merchants, ranging from hair dressers to mom and pop shops, where iPhone carrying crowd most like to linger.
Either way, e-wallets will be a feature we all will be using soon and Apple could be the one to promote the trend, unless Google jumps the bus.
Bloomberg