Some consumers are the perfect target for things like this. Nokia sent over an email a few days ago exposing how owners of NOKLA phones are sending them to NOKIA service centers for repairs. Because of the inferior design quality, these phones tend to break. The problem with consumers is that they tend to mistake the NOKLA brand for real Nokia phones because of the way the “L” looks like an “i.” So that I don’t confuse you, I’m putting the NOKLA brand in all caps.

Here are three ways to tell if your NOKIA phone is legitimate:

Warranty
Nokia mobile phones bought in the Nokia Store or from its authorized dealers have a blue 12-month limited warranty sticker from Nokia Care slapped on the top or side parts of the phone’s box.

A Nokia Care Tamper Proof warranty sticker is also found in the mobile phone’s accessories such as the charger, battery, memory card, or data cable.

Stamp of Approval
All Nokia phones bought from the Nokia Store or any of its authorized dealers have a Tamper Proof Type label at the back of each mobile phone along with the NTC logo and the Type acceptance number as part of one sticker. Also found in the back of the mobile phone is the Nokia tamper proof Warranty Seal.

Battery
To see if your battery is the real thing, you have to make sure the hologram label reflects the Nokia Connecting Hands at one angle and the Original Enhancements logo at another angle. When you angle the hologram on the left, right, down and upsides of the logo, you should see 1, 2, 3 and 4 dots on each side respectively.

Post from: Cellphone9

Not sure why they had to choose this phone of all models, but the Sony Ericsson T650i is now encased in gold. It isn’t the whole phone, mind you – just the screen, You know, cost cutting measures here and there especially with the weakening of the dollar. What this basically means is the screen is scratch resistant.

Post from: Cellphone9

Here’s what you can do:

List the phone models down in the comments section. You can list as many phones as you want, but more importantly include a short line on why these phones were crappy. Be it the hardware, software or after sales support, list it all down.

I’ll update the blog post into some sort of poll after a few days so keep the lists coming!

As for my crap phone experiences? Well, let me save my list for later on. Heh.

1. The Smart PDA says the Nokia 6708 was the worst phone he used

[Photo courtesy of webtvwire]

Post from: Cellphone9

Here are a few things up for the testing grounds according to the devs:

* New Portrait QVGA UI designed for remote controls
* New Universal driver for Windows SideShow that supports USB and Bluetooth communication
* New Simulator that uses the Universal driver
* New user switching UI for devices operating in the assigned user mode
* New Bluetooth menu commands
* Support for Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian languages

Gee. Although SideShow works with mobile devices with two screens, there has to be a way to link it up to your mobile phone to view pertinent information. Since SideShow uses gadgets, I guess an upgrade to the WM OS would allow support for these.

Post from: Cellphone9

“Early next year Barclaycard will run a trial of the technology on the back of its new ‘OnePulse’ contactless card, which was launched in September. OnePulse cards are combined credit cards and Oyster cards, and also allow small purchases (under £10) to be made without entering a Pin.

About 1,000 retailers in the capital are already equipped with the contactless terminals for OnePulse, so putting the technology into mobile phones will not require them to install yet more expensive kit. Several hundred Barclaycard customers will be issued with compatible phones supplied by Nokia, which has been pushing the technology for several years. [Textually]

Honestly, I feel that this is a neat concept that is highly dependent on the culture of the society. For instance, although online purchases are quite common nowadays, there is a certain charm to lining up for Black Friday sales. Nonetheless, the adoption of mobile phones as pay methods is not new. However, there has to be a mindset change on the fact that if you lose, your cellphone, you lose more than your address book. Risky, ain’t it?

Post from: Cellphone9

Marrying the ovehead projector and the cellphone, this Windows Mobile powered smartphone concept brings a lot more to the table, literally.

And if it costs much less than $500.00, then this can very well replace your board room projector. Of course, the concept leaves you with many questions. Your mobile phone would probably only support USB connectivity in the first place – and secondly, how would the phone control heat from the “bulb?”

Nonetheless, this concept brings a lot of excitement to portable presentation tools.

Post from: Cellphone9

Well this isn’t exactly a cellular phone but the concept is too cute to ignore. Imagine, instead of having numbers, you have a set of RFID tagged buttons of your family and friends. These buttons can be fitted into your phone slot to make calls.

Prank calls would consist of you switching around the photos of your mother in law and your wife.

[Yanko Design]

Post from: Cellphone9

The guys from The Register reports that Nigel Clifford, CEO from Symbian addressed the crowd, calling everyone neanderthals at the recent Symbian Show.

Yes, we’re cavemen, said Clifford, only cavemen who want to take our environment with us. “Connected cavemen”, in fact.[Read]

The move came as a creative expression to point out that despite the fact that technology allows us to stay on the go, we are still, by all means, cavemen that need to do caveman sorts of things like stay in our caves and watch television.

The only difference is … now we do it through our mobile phone.

Booga! Ooga booga!

Post from: Cellphone9

In the last episode of Macbreak Weekly and TWiT, Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann (congratulations on your paternity leave!), Don Reisinger, Roger Chang, Steve Gibson and the rest of the two panels were discussing how Apple’s iPhone exclusivity fiasco has caused much emotional outrage with both the mainstream consumer and Apple fanatics.

Remember when the iPod became a success? The influx of iPod buying traffic spilled over to conversions to the Macintosh. “Oh yeah,” says Apple, “we know you liked the iPod — why don’t you try out our iMacs?” This was truly apparent as Apple distinguished itself in their website by launching the iMac with the tagline “from the makers of the iPod.”

I say the same can be said for the iPhone. Even here in the Philippines, where the iPhone is officially not yet available, quite a number of stores have stocked unlocked iPhones with a selling price of about USD $450.00. Underground iPhone unlocking businesses are charging USD$50.00 per unlock (that’s the cheapest). It all boils down to the consumer wondering why Apple had initially agreed to enter into an exclusivity deal in the first place. For most “mainstream” consumers, the iPhone is their first (or second – depending whether they own an iPod) encounter with an Apple product and they are greeted with strict rules that give them the impression that this company is bullish with their consumer experience.

If Apple wants to expand their business into consumer electronics and digital life, they should have been more faithful with their Think Different campaign. I guess this is what happens to a company tainted with some form of hubris.

Post from: Cellphone9

The phone industry sure knows how to screw Apple around. With Nokia belting Apple for their “anti unlocking” regime, now its Palm’s turn to issue a $99.00 smartphone into the hands of fresh graduates who can’t afford a smartphone. Presenting the Palm Centro – it’s finally come. Available very soon on a 90 day exclusivity with Sprint, the Centro is basically a smaller and more hip Treo. Really interesting too – that this pegs the price of a VERY GOOD smartphone to about a hundred dollars.

Between the iPhone and the Palm Centro, I’m giving my vote to the latter for smartphone of the year.

Here are the specs:

Display
320×320 pixel Transflective color touchscreen, supports 16-bit color (up to 65K colors)
Radio
Dual-band CDMA2000 EvDO backward compatible with 1XRTT and IS95
Platform
Palm OS 5.4.9
Bluetooth® Wireless Technology
Version 1.2
Memory
64MB available user storage
Camera
1.3 megapixels with 2x digital zoom and video capture
Battery
Removable 1150mAh, lithium-ion, 3.5 hours talk time, up to 300 hours standby time
Expansion
microSD card (up to 4GB supported)
Connector
Multi-connector
Dimensions
4.22″ (L) x 2.11″ (W) x 0.73″ (D); 4.2 oz
Colors
Ruby and Onyx

Post from: Cellphone9