It has been just over a year since Palm unveiled webOS and the Palm Pre. Initially, the Pre was exclusive to Sprint and that led many consumers to be hesitant of purchasing the phone. However, at CES Palm outed their plan to bring a updated version of the Pre to a new carrier. At that moment, the Palm Pre Plus was born on Verizon Wireless.

The Palm Pre Plus brought a few hardware improvements over its Sprint counterpart. With double the internal memory, the Pre Plus should now be able to handle more tasks at once without a system slowdown. The device also seems to be a bit more sturdy.

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Nokia is well-known for its widely popular phones such as the Nokia E71, N95, and N97. Nokia recently released the N900 smartphone that brings along tons of features and impressive specifications. We’ve been following all the news and rumors on this phone and, needless to say, we are excited about getting one. The phone was introduced into the United States on November 11, 2009 and is not yet available to purchase directly from any major carriers here. The N900 used the Maemo 5 Linux operating system, unlike its predecessors which ran Symbian. This was a unique review for us because we haven’t had much experience with Maemo, so we had to learn the OS from scratch. Typically when we review a device, we have at least played around with the OS. Therefore, we are excited to bring you the Nokia N900 review.

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Duracell released a couple portable chargers for your cellular phone or portable devices early July of 2009 and we’ve been lucky enough to receive one of their Instant USB Charger’s.

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Earlier this week we reviewed the iFrogz MyFrogz custom iPhone case, now we are bringing you the EarPollution Timbre earbuds review. We at Smartphone Nation love music and often use our phones as music players on the go. Therefore, we like using earphones that also have a built-in microphone for answering phone calls. The iFrogz Timbre earphones with a microphone satisfy those needs.

These earphones have a natural wood chamber that serves a few purposes. Most importantly, the wood chamber helps with the superb sound that you get from these earbuds. Secondly, it just looks so damn classic. We think that the black cord iFrogz uses complements the wood chamber style. When holding the earbuds the wood chamber looks like high quality wood and the earbuds also seem to be made with quality in mind. As you move down the cord, you see a microphone that allows you to pick up a call and talk without taking the earbuds out.

While the look of the earbuds are important, the most critical component is the sound quality that they produce. We used the Timbre earbuds on the long plane ride home from CES and were pretty surprised with them. The earbuds blocked out the majority of sounds that would be heard on an airplane including the sound of the plane and people talking around us. When evaluating the sound quality, we found that it really brought out the sounds of the music. We compared them to the earbuds that come with the iPhone iPhone and found that the Timbre ones sounded noticeably better.

We gave the attached microphone a try on our BlackBerry Bold 9700. After a few calls we found that the quality was high. When the other side was talking, it came in clear and really blocked out all ambient noise. The people we talked to said that it was clear and sounded fine.

As a conclusion, the iFrogz EarPollution Timbre earbuds are a great value. At $49.99, these earbuds really perform with great music quality and have a microphone that delivers clear voice quality. When using the earbuds in a noisy environment, they effectively block out the majority of the noise.

The Timbres can be purchased at the iFrogz website.

Pixi Dust?

The Palm Pixi is the next experience from Palm, which is offered exclusively from Sprint for the time being. It is a follow up to the original Palm Pre for those who thought the Pre was just too thick and wasn’t pocketable. The Pixi isn’t a successor to the Pre though as some people might think. It’s just another option as mentioned above. The Pixi is in a candybar form factor that has a full QWERTY kerboard (which is very comfortable for its size) and a cramped screen on top of the keyboard which is also a capacitive touch display. The Pixi also runs Palm’s new webOS and doesn’t rear off from its predecessor. The “Cards” system runs multiple applications in the background at the same time, keeping you both in sync and in touch with your everyday activities.

Hardware

The Palm Pixi reminds me of the Treo Centro. They are just about the same size. Small, pocketable and useable; you can’t complain about those three right there. The Pixi feels really, really comforable in your hands. Almost as comfortable as a BlackBerry Bold or iPhone. It is perfectly designed and shows off what a small phone should look like. The keyboard is very clackity and is arranged in four rows that gave me a hard time to type on (could be because of my hands…). The keys are tiny and have a decent rise to them so that you know what you are typing on.

Palm has a form factor that uses minimal design. The front of the phone is just as you see it: flat piece of plastic, screen, and full QWERTY keyboard. On the  top of the screen it has those two main things needed in a phone now, an ambient light sensor and proximity sensor. The left side and bottom of the phone are left blank. The right side of the phone has the volume rocker and Palm’s signature ringer/vibrate switch. Also on the right side lies the microUSB charging port underneath a flap which has a magnet attached to it so it stays locked and secured. On the top, you have your most wanted 3.5 mm headset jack and power button. The power button doubles as a screen lock because the keyboard doesn’t have that shortcut like a BlackBerry.

On the back there is a 2 megapixel camera and a flash right slab in the middle. To the left and right of the camera and flash, there are two speaker grills. There is also a tiny hole where you can attach a piece of string, dog tag, or whatever so your phone will stay close to you like a female with a Louis Vuitton purse. I know what you’re thinking, is the Pixi compatible with the Touchstone charger? The answer is no, it’s not. It could be because Palm wanted to save some type of money (they are pretty much losing a lot of it right), or they felt the Pixi didn’t deserve one. Ask them, I didn’t make it.

Keyboard, Keyboard, Keyboard

I’m going to be the first one to tell you this keyboard is actually better than the Pre’s keyboard. Sounds funny, I know, but it really is. I wasn’t expecting some type of fireworks when I first laid eyes on this tiny puppy, but playing around with both handsets together you could tell the difference. The Pre’s keyboard feels more fake if you ask me. The Pixi’s, is far better in terms of comfortability. If you’ve typed on a Palm Centro, you should feel right at home, bangin emails and texts in no time. No really, you should. Palm has always had a knack for making quality keyboards and the Pixi’s size doesn’t seem to have held the company back from doing it again. Now mind you, this isn’t a BlackBerry Bold keyboard, but you have to show appreciation to those who earn it, and Palm you have mine.  To sum it all up, it’s small. Eventually as all other keyboards are, it becomes second nature to type on this phone. People like myself will though have a problem typing (HINT: huge hands).

webOS

Mobile OSX, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and webOS. Save the best for last right. I feel that webOS is a highly profitable OS for Palm. It is a blend of Mobile OSX and Android to me. You have that feeling of openness and reliability in your hands. Isn’t that something we long for anyway in a device? webOS is all about connecting and that’s exactly what it does, keeps you connected. webOS hasn’t changed at all for the Pixi and it probably won’t change for a long time coming. The concept of the “Cards” system is by far the best multitasking tool on a SmartPhone to date. Text messages, e-mails, and Facebook notifications all appear on the bottom of the screen without having you losing focus on what you are already doing. It just pops up and goes right back down. Palm has done a really good job on this OS concept and hopefully they finesse it even more. Another great feature of webOS is Palm’s very own backup system which is free for everyone with a Palm Pixi or Pre device, Synergy. Synergy is just like MobileMe for the iPhone or Mac OSX, and Google’s syncing feature on the Android platform (if you don’t have an Android device but you do have a Nokia (E or N Series; Mail for Exchange is required), BlackBerry or Windows Phone, Google has there own applications or instructions for setup on their website. It is available to use for free as well. Sweet isn’t it.) Sync your phone with Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, or back up to your Palm profile account. Or set up accounts with all four! Good stuff isn’t it. Think about  it, how many times have you lost your phone or all of your contacts while switching to another device? Sucks doesn’t it. You have to input all the numbers in one by one and it gets pretty tedious after the tenth one, trust me I’ve done that before. All in all, Synergy is a great way to have backups on everything you need to be connected on. I give Palm kudos on this one.

Call Quality

Call quality on the Pixi is quite good in my testing so far – clear and loud without much distortion at maximum volume. Overall the Pixi seems to pick up Sprint signal as well as any other Sprint phone I’ve tried used. I would say this phone is right on par with it’s older, bigger brother, the Palm Pre and as well as the Hero. All three phones have great reception even when you’re in an area where Sprint usually doesn’t pick up any signal, like your basement.

The speakerphone, on the other hand, isn’t anything to get enthused about. It’s loud enough for me and sounds like a cell phone’s speaker. It’s slightly quieter than the Pre’s speaker,less distorted sound, but gets the job done.

Battery Life

In real-world tests, the battery life on the Pixi was good, but not great. We can’t knock the phone too much, as it did seem to perform better than the Pre. My feeling is that battery life on devices like the Pixi and Pre, those always-on, always connected devices, is a nut that hasn’t been fully cracked. I was able to drain out a day’s use on the Pixi, but it was tight, and if we really went for it, a dinner time recharge was in order. I think, along with the Pre, that we’ll see some bigger after market batteries for the Pixi, but for now, you’ll want to keep your charger on hand and hope that a wall socket is nearby.

Conclusion

Do I think you should drop your Pre for the Pixi? No. Do I think this phone is placed at the right price range for a SmartPhone of this type of calliber? Yes, absolutely. Go ahead and become a part of the 100 other people who purchased this device. They love it. You should too. Its small, pocketable, reliable and fun to use. Now if you don’t want to purchase this because you are biased and love your current carrier (cough Verizon), you can wait outside to purchase one on January 25th for the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. The Pixi Plus will have Wi-Fi on it as this one doesn’t. Cool right?

It looks like Rogers is starting to pickup more Android devices, and why not add the new LG Eve to that list. This is a touchscreen smartphone with all the smartphone capabilities, however it looks a lot like the LG Xenon that was released a while back, but the size and style of it in general doesn’t stand out to many smartphone consumers.

Features & Pricing

The new LG Eve will run you for about $49.99 on a 3 year voice & data contract or $399.99 for just the phone on Rogers.Features include a fairly decent 3 inch screen, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Face Recognition app, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3.5G 7.2mbps data speeds. The Eve has 150mb of built in memory but also includes a 2gb MicroSD card, expandable up to16gb. You’ll find a large slide out qwerty keyboard as well a touchscreen which isn’t the best but gets the job done.

Design

The design of the LG Eve looks very nice with the glossy front touchscreen and grey color combination. There are three dedicated Home, Menu and Back buttons on the front of the phone. The Home and Back buttons are actually touch sensitive which are quite annoying because sometimes you accidentally tap it. The build quality is quite sturdy and the slide out keyboard is very well built with no looseness.

The Eve weighs about 139g which is quite comfortable and isn’t to heavy in the pocket. The top of the phone you’ll find the 3.5mm headphone jack as well as the Power/Lock, Unlock button. The left of the phone has the MicroUSB port and the volume rocker and the right has a dedicated camera and music key along with the MicroSD card slot.

Interface

The LG Eve runs Android firmware 1.5 specifically designed for social networking. The main menu has changed quite a bit from the two original Android phones (HTC Magic and Dream) that had the basic slide up menu. To access the menu, you press the menu button on the main screen which has been setup as a permanent icon. From there you’ll find the main menu which shows categories sorted by Rogers, Communication, Multimedia, Utilities, Google, and Downloads. It’s fairly simple to slide up and down and most of the applications are still the same as the other Android devices. The notification bar on the top is still there and is easily accessed by sliding it down to reveal your notifications as well as the ability to turn on and off Bluetooth and WiFi.

Social Network

Rogers has made this phone specifically for those who love to keep in touch in anyway possible. They have included a Windows Live Messenger application as well as Yahoo Messenger. Both these apps can run in the background and any messages you receive will show up on the notification bar.

The LG Eve features a special application called SNS Manager which brings together Facebook, Twitter and Bebo networks into one place, letting users check status updates in real time. You can now setup other email accounts including Rogers, Yahoo, Telus, and many other email providers listed.

Dialing & Call Quality

The dialing keypad is a bit different from the other Android devices. It’s quite simple and nothing to fancy. I would rather have a physical send and end key instead.

Call quality is loud and very clear but unfortunately, there isn’t always signal. I seem to have a hard time making calls while in my basement because of low to no bars at all. Speaker-phone isn’t that great either because it echo’s quite often on the other line.

Camera Quality & Battery Life

The LG Eve has a decent 5 megapixel camera. I found some pictures to show up quite bad in low lights, even with the LED flash. But when outside in daylight, you’ll find pictures to show up quite well but not as vibrant as expected for a 5 megapixel camera. Colors seemed to be washed out and photos sometimes come out grainy which is quite annoying. The Eve has a decent video camera and is quite fast, but sometimes choppy at points when viewing and the quality isn’t the greatest either.

Battery Life I must say is quite bad. I’m not sure why but for some reason, the three Android phones that we have reviewed from Rogers have all had about the same battery life. I could barely go 8 hours of  normal use (WiFi & Bluetooth Off). This phone is definitely something that has to be charged daily, and if you find that a problem. You’ll definitely have to lug around some sort of charger or extra battery.

Photo Examples:

Conclusion

While LG tries to make this a smartphone. I just don’t see how it can be. With the small touchscreen which is quite hard to press, to the slowness of navigating around menus, to even the battery life just doesn’t make me say that this is the phone that business users want or should have. That being said, I would definitely recommend this phone to teens of younger age as a first smartphone because of the all the social networking applications crammed into this phone but if your expecting your daughter/son to keep this phone for 3 years. I wouldn’t recommend it.

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Rogers released the new Nokia N86 not too long and after using it for quite a while, I’ve found this to be one of the best camera phones around. This device would run you for a pricey $300-$500 retail at a Nokia store but Rogers has somehow drop that price-tag to $99.99 with a 3 year. Read the full story

Since we did a review on the Rogers HTC Dream, I’ve decided that there really isn’t any point to do a full on review of the Rogers HTC Magic because both are the exact same software wise. That being said, we still like to cover the Magic because of all that can’t decide between the Rogers HTC Magic or the Rogers HTC Dream.

The Rogers HTC Magic prices as followed:

• $79.99 – 3 year voice+data plan
• $449.99 – 2 year
• $524.99 – 1 year
• $549.99 – no contract

The Rogers HTC Magic features a large 3.2″ high resolution glossy touch screen which enables one touch access to Google Search™ and a fully integrated Gmail™, Maps™ and Latitude™ experience. The Magic is a 7.2mbps 3G phone with built in GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi as well as a built-in accelerometer and 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus. The Rogers HTC Magic includes a 2gb MicroSD card which is expandable up to 16gb.

The differences between the HTC Magic and the HTC Dream is mostly the slide out keyboard that the Dream has. We’ve already played with this phone for quite a bit and noticed that its pretty much the exact same as the Dream. Both battery life seems to last only 5-7 hours depending on how much you use and what you keep running in the background (charging daily is a must for this device) and the interface seems to be the same as it lags a bit when applications are running.

The Rogers HTC Magic comes in a glossy black slim form with a leather case included vs the Rogers HTC Dream which is available in either Matte White or Matte Black. The HTC Magic has a slide-up virtual keyboard, exactly the same as the iPhone. Still no 3.5mm earphone jack for the music player but the package includes a USB earphones which may fit most people, but it didn’t for me.

Essentially, I believe that both phones are the exact same when it comes to battery life, camera, and interface. Neither are better then the other and both seem to fit what I like. Slimness of the HTC Magic and full qwerty keyboard of the HTC Dream. Choice is pretty simple, you either want a phone with a full qwerty keyboard, or a phone which is slim and glossy. In my opinion, I’d shoot for the slim and sexy HTC Magic but my iPhone seems to satisfy me just well.

If you want a full on review on the Rogers HTC Dream, check it out here: Rogers HTC Dream Review

Not too long ago, the iPhone 3GS was released on the Rogers network and lucky for us, Rogers was able to drop off a demo unit for us to review and compare. So lets get down to business. Read the full story

Business people have become dependent on their smartphones to do all of their basic business needs. Whether these needs are email, calendar, web browsing, or any other feature that will increase productivity on the go.

Nokia’s E-series phones are aimed at business users who need to stay organized and keep in touch with a team. The Nokia E75 is not an exception, this phone was meant to for these reasons, but we could definitely see the regular consumer with one. The phone is not currently carried on any carrier in the US, but it is available unlocked for around $440. With many features that non-business users would use, the E75 is not just for business users. The E75 has some impressive features, check them out below:

• Slide out QWERTY keyboard
• 2.4″ 320 x 240 pixel screen
• Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1900/1900, WCDMA 900/1900/2100 HSDPA
• Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi
• Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP2
• Phone Dimensions: 4.4″ x 1.97″ x 0.57″

Design:

The Nokia E75 is a small, nice looking phone that was designed with the customer in mind. Weighing 4.9 oz, the E75 is a little bit heavier than its cousin, the E71, which weighs 4.44 oz. This by no means mean that it is a heavy phone, we don’t have a problem carrying this phone around with us. The phone is 4.4 inches long and 1.97 inches wide when closed so it is going to be smaller than your typical BlackBerry or iPhone. The phones front looks like a typical candybar style phone, but with a slide out QWERY keyboard.

The phone itself is very solid and well put together. The battery cover is made of metal which gives the phone a solid feeling. The sliding mechanism seemed to be secure and we feel that it will stay that way even with a lot of use. All keys on the phone seem to of relatively high quality to stay working for the life of the phone.

When closed, the front of the phone shows a normal phone keypad, some shortcut keys, and a trackpad. The shortcut keys give the option of easily going to an application without having to go through the menus. Customers who use their calendar or email a lot will find this useful because with one click of button they can get right to the application they need. When the phone is opened, it will reveal a QWERTY keyboard that is spread out perfect for using two thumbs to type. Typing with the QWERTY keyboard was a pleasure and very easy to type without error.

On the sides of the E75 there are some buttons that serve different functions. On the right side you have the volume up and down keys, voice command, and the camera key. We liked how you have to hold down these buttons to do anything. On some phones if you press the camera key once it starts taking pictures of your pocket, that is not the case with the E75. On the left side there is a MicroSD slot that supports up a 16GB card, the phone itself comes with a 4GB one. There is so the micro-USB plug on the left side that will allow customers to sync to their computer. On the top of the phone there is a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to music or using a handsfree headset. On the bottom there is the charging port which uses the standard Nokia charger and the microphone.

Usage:

We are going to start with the keyboard on the E75. There are two different options to type on this device, using the numeric keypad or the slide out QWERTY keyboard. We found ourselves using the numberic keypad to dial numbers, not really ever to type though. The shortcut keys on the numeric keypad were useful, but people with big thumbs may find them hard to master. Each shortcut key has two different options and sometime would be difficult to press. Having used smartphones with QWERTY keyboards for years, we couldn’t even imagine typing on a numeric keypad again. For that reason, Nokia included a full QWERY keyboard that slides out and rotates the screen. This was much easier for us to type words and write messages. Since Nokia did not have to attempt to fit the QWERTY keyboard below the screen, it had more room to fit a comfortable keyboard that would make the user happy. This keyboard really required both hands to be used since it is so large and spread out. In the middle of the keyboard there is a silver piece that helped us figure out which thumb to use for each key. When typing on the full keyboard the keys would usually give good feedback and were easy to press.

The Nokia E75 has a 2.4 inch, 320 x 240 pixel screen. The display on the phone is clear and crisp and we had no complaints there. However, we found that this screen was a little small for our liking. Having used mainly smartphones with larger screens, we were not used to having to use such a small display. This really came into play when browsing the web on a non-mobile site. Users have to move their curser to move around the webpage.

With a 3.2 megapixel camera and autofocus, the Nokia E75 takes decent pictures for a phone. Since this a E-series phone, it has a lower quality camera when compared to a N-series phone like the N97. When taking a picture users press the camera side key to focus then take the picture. When the phone was open, we sometimes found it difficult to press this button as the camera key is right behind the screen. We compared our pictures to those taken with the BlackBerry Bold and saw a world of difference in quality. Some of the pictures taken with the E75 can be seen below.

The Nokia E75 a GSM phone that runs on the EGSM 850/900/1900/1900, WCDMA 900/1900/2100 HSDPA bands. So how is the voice and data quality? Making calls on the E75 sounded good on our end, the volume was loud and the sound was crisp. On the other side of the phone, listeners said we sounded clean and clear. Since we tested this phone on the AT&T network, we were able to try the 3G network on the phone. The data loaded fast and there wasn’t really a lag when loading pages like there is with the BlackBerry Bold. The data speeds are largely carrier dependent, so the speeds are not important.

Email and web browsing is often very important to business customers. The E75 is similar to any other E-series smartphone in it runs Symbian and the email and web browser is really the same. Like we mentioned earlier in the review, the screen size sometimes affected the quality of our web browsing but otherwise it loaded the pages nicely. We would recommend giving SkyFire browser a try if you end up getting a Symbian try. In terms of email, it is not push like BlackBerry users will be used to. You can set it to sync every 5 minutes at the soonest and it just goes up from there, but setting it too low can affect the battery life.

We mentioned in the Design part of the review that the Nokia E75 has a voice command button on the right side. Holding the button will bring up the voice command where you can say what you want to open. The great part of this feature is that you can open any application by just saying the name. For example, users can just say “Calendar” and it will give you to option to open the calendar. Voice command also works for calling and texting. If users want to call or text someone they can say “name message” or “call name”.

Conclusion:

The Nokia E75 is advertised as a business phone, but we feel that it is not just a phone for business users. There is tons of multimedia features in the E75 that will appeal to consumers of all types. Users who do a lot of texting will find this keyboard luxurious for talking to their friends. Users will also be pleased with the camera and web browser if they choose to use data. The one multimedia feature that is missing is a larger screen, but with a larger screen comes a larger phone. Overall we would recommend this phone to people who are looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and data functions. Consumers looking for a small phone will be pleased by the size and form factor of this one.