Smartphone arena in 2008

This is a rather interesting but not too surprising article on Toronto Star this afternoon. The article title is “The year the cellphone changed forever” (see below). It primarily talks about Research In Motion (RIM) in 2008. Blackberry is known as the flagship of RIM. In 2008, RIM got its foot into a totally new arena by launched two products: the Flip and the Storm. These smartphones target new customers, namely consumers; while the Bold is still keeping the traditionalists excited.

Consumer market is a very tough game and dangerous arena. RIM’s analysts have two diverted views: RIM enters a population depending market which first RIM has to reduce its gross margins of its products. Thus, RIM operating model needs to be adaptive and sensitive this new market. Relationship with network provider is also a key successful factor in this game.

So at the end, who wins in this arena? Consumers: we always win!

Link to the article: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/559896

(picture credit: theStart.com)

HTC Touch Diamond vs. Pro

In early May 2008, HTC unveiled two new flagship products, HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro.

Their common features are listed as follows:

• 2.8-inch touch screen, 640×480 pixels.
• Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
• HTC Weather – providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
• Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g).
• 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
• Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

By looking at their outlooks, it is obvious that Pro has a full-size QWERTY keyboard. Diamond has a software QWERTY keyboard since its screen is also a touch interface. Pro is 0.71 inches thick and Diamond is only 0.45 inches thick. Also, Pro is 5.83 oz and Diamond is 3.88 oz. Pro is thicker and heavier than Diamond, again, because of its full-size QWERTY keyboard. Depends on your preference, I personally prefer thinner and lighter gadget.

Other features are fairly similar as listed above. Except Diamond has 4GB of internal memory out-of-box, while Pro has only 512MB only! However, Pro has GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands (Quad band) while Diamond has only 900/1800/1900 MHz (Tri band). I am still using my two-year-old Moto K1 (Quad band). Comparing with my old SE phone (I don’t remember the model but it was only a tri band), the 850 MHz band really make a different in North Ameria, at least in Canada.

From their name, Pro has more value-added features, such as 850 MHz band and longer battery life. Diamond aims for the entertainment-rich features, such larger memory for music/movie download.

Looking at Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, it is very comparible to Pro. In fact, they both have full-size QWERTY keyboard, they are both running MS Windows Mobile 6.1, they are both quad band compatible and Wi-Fi support. However, X1 is a stonger one comparing to Pro. X1 has a 3 inches WVGA (800×480, 64k-colour TFT) and lighter (5.1 oz).

Both X1 and Pro will be released late summer in 2008. It is going to be a head-to-head competition! Stay tune!

(Pictures credit: HTC & Sony Ericsson)

BlackBerry 9000 ‘Bold’ review

RIM BlackBerry 9000 ‘Bold’ is official out today in North America (US & Canada) to compete with Apple iPhone which will be released in Canada summer 2008.

The BlackBerry Bold features a half-VGA (480×320 pixel resolution) and a 65,000-color display. There’s a heaping of wireless options on the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) BlackBerry Bold. It also integrates Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 with full A2DP support, and built-in GPS.

The RIM BlackBerry Bold is equipped with a 624MHz Intel PXA270 processor. There’s also 128MB of flash memory and 1GB of onboard memory, which is all supplemented by the microSD/SDHC expansion slot.

As for multimedia, this smartphone is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with video-recording capabilities and up to 5x zoom. The media player also continues to support numerous audio and video formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC, DivX4, and WMV3 files.

Here’s a video review of BlackBerry Bold found on YouTube.

More detailed review can be found here (courtesy of CrackBerry.com):

• Part I – eBay Purchased BlackBerry Emerges
• Part II – Observations & Video Quick Tour
• Part III – OS4.6
• Part IV – New Eye Candy

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIM) opens at $136.70, high $140.29.

(Pictures credit: RIM)

Unified WordPress and Facebook

Finally I’ve got the import note feature working in Facebook Now when I posted a blog post, it will be imported to my Facebook profile as a note. Sweet~~

(Really, this is just a test message!)

My first day

Today is my first day back to ATI/AMD!

I am currently with the BusIP group which does PCI-Express. This group is pretty well established and here’re the reasons:

• My group has both Design Engineers and Design Verification (DV) Engineers. It is pretty self-sustain.
• We have a pretty good mix of people: architects who have 20+ years of experience in this industry and energetic code monkeys (like me) who want to learn everything
• We also have people on the PCI-SIG board which has been defining the standard for the industry. It’s just cool!

I thought I would be really busy on my first day on preparing and studying the PCIe spec. Since my manager is interviewing someone and I am still waiting for the IT to setup my Unix account, I have couple minutes to write up this post.

Overall I am very glad to be back and I look forward to my new challenges!

Apple Store in Tokyo

Sorry for being a tech geek but this eye candy is so so sweet …

Diet Coke + Mentos = Creativity

I am sure alot of you have seen this video already. You’ve got to see it again!!

MSN Messenger 8.0 (Beta) goes Live!

Finally I managed to find MSN Messenger 8.0 beta version available. It is formly available on MSN. Before you attempt to try it out, you should get a Windows Live account first. You don't need to re-create anything, simply click on the following link and transfer your Microsoft Passport to Windows Live account. It is petty simple so far.

http://ideas.live.com/signup.aspx?versionId=
0eccd94b-eb48-497c-8e60-c6313f7ebb73

I have found three different languages associated with this version of MSN Messenger. Click on the one of the following links to download the appropriate MSN Messenger you want. Just that simple

English : http://g.msn.com/1csbeta/Mess80_EN-EN
Traditional Chinese : http://g.msn.com/1csbeta/Mess80_ZH-TW
Simplified Chinese : http://g.msn.com/1csbeta/Mess80_ZH-CN

Google Talk with new look

Google has just released a new Google Talk today (ver. 1.0.0.92). This version of Google Talk has new features added. Now you can personalize your pictures in Google Talk. You can also customize different themes to show your conversations. Although you can also access Google Talk via your Blackberry, I am not rich enough to afford this features. I will stick with the PC version just for now.

I found that in the bottom of Google Talk main interface you can select different views for your contact list. Also you can get to your Gmail account by just one click the red envelope

I am a loyal MSN Messenger user. I install Google Talk just because it associates with Gmail which is an essential part. I like the simplicity of Google Talk but I also like the functionality of MSN Messenger.

Yet another feature discovery of WordPress

I always wonder if I can find out who link posts from my blog to theirs. The answer is yes if you are using WordPress. I have created a link from my previous blog to here. WordPress' dashboard shows me that post which contains a link to here. It uses Google Blog Search features and it is pretty cool. I wonder if it will also works with normal Google web search. I wonder … Hmm