8 posts tagged “review”

Aurelia got my Christmas present early in the form of a Dovo Straight Razor with the replaceable blade. Her main reason for the purchase was she couldn't find a local dealer who sold the Japanese made Feather brand razors and she didn't want to wait for shipping. The razor is pretty simple to reload the blades... It just uses Merkur safety blades that are snapped in half and then loaded into the blade holder. After the blade is loaded, the user slides it into the razor and it's set to go.

The blades are plenty sharp as they are from old fashioned safety razors... so they don't forgive quite as much as a true straight razor from what folks like the people at "Straight Razor Place" forums mentioned on some of their guides that have been archived. This is one shavette razor that patience is to be emphasized... I ended up getting some cuts and nicks here and there from it. For a beginner and this blade, one cannot fear the blade and prudence must be exercised as they will minimize the cuts. I recommend having a styptic pencil or a block of alum on hand in the case of cuts to minimize bleeding from their hemostatic effect.

Although I like the blade, I feel due to the size of the blades in use... it holds back the learning potential of the user. True, there's no need to learn about sharpening blades... but when your cutting edge is half of the size of a standard blade, you have to do more to clean up the facial hairs. I will definitely be looking into getting a Feather branded razor, as their blades are full sized and disposable, the sharpening will not have to be done. The main debate really will be if I will buy the Pro Guard blades (with a guide wire) or the the professional blades.

Here are the images below of my shaving gear for those who are wondering what in blazes I am talking about.

The Razor

The gear: Razor, shaving bowl, soap, badger hair brush by Proraso, and styptic pencil

I can still recant the day that I sold my original first generation PSP... It was a hard day as I had grown to like some of the system's nuances, but at the same time Sony had hit the brick wall with lack of good games. When Sony was just selective on approving titles to come out to the American market, that was when I simply had enough. The DS was enjoying a lot of niche Japanese games and Nintendo of America was eager to approve almost anything to market. So from that, the DS flourished with fans of all ages buying the system. The PSP in America? While Sony of America was barely approving games, they were in bed with Hollywood to try to save the dying UMD Video format from becoming quickly obsolete from one matter of fact: American users found that ripping from a DVD, then transcoding the video to MP4 format to load on a Memory Stick Pro Duo lead to a far more better quality with regard to sound and picture quality. The best part was battery life was even longer as the system was not spinning the disc drive to read the disc, as you could watch almost four 2-hour movies rather than one 3-hour UMD movie.

The irony in selling my PSP was about a month later, Sony finally "pulled their head out of their ass" and finally opened their doors to approve a wider library of games. One of those games happened to be quite possibly the two best games of the Castlevania franchise ever. Konami named it "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles" with the primary aim of the game to be a more updated 2 1/2 D remake of the PC Engine game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (or Turbo Graphix 16 with a CD drive, for you American folks). The kicker was that in the main game, you could unlock the ORIGINAL versions of Rondo of Blood AND Symphony of The Night. The news of a Symphony of the Night remake really hurt me, because I had my "Greatest Hits!" version (with the cheeky green packaging) stolen from me and the culprit was never found. After my hopes for a Gran Turismo Mobile were broken by yet another delay, this news of a Castlevania remake and bundle made me bitterly hate that I sold my PSP to the auction block. I vowed one day to get a PSP again so I could regain what I had sorely lost...

Over last week, I managed to get a bit of a surplus of cash due to pulling max-out shifts for my weeks and hitting near overtime so I scored a PSP Slim core package (system, charger, battery, manuals) and Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for myself. For once, I am seriously impressed with what Konami has produced. Before I go on to that... I would like to link to pspZine's blog archive for those who are unaware of the PSP Slim's differences: pspZine - PSP versus the PSP Slim. Over all, I like the the reduced weight and the slightly improved ergonomics of the device. Though Sony of America has me waiting in desire as the "Photos" portion of the Cross Media Bar (to be abbreviated to XMB) has a "camera" icon. This icon looks like the Japanese "Chotto Camera" or European "Go!Camera" but Sony of America has not announced when they will release this peripheral. Almost counter productive of the new 3.72 firmware release to have this feature but lack the peripheral itself. The XMB interface is finally customizable, which I remember that being a big complaint that the PSP community harped on the most. It's not a big deal, but for some... it was a part of the software that they wanted to customize to their liking. Though going slim has its disadvantages... The battery life is significantly shorter, as the PSP Slim's battery is a 3.8v 1200 mAh batter compared to the original's 3.8v 1800mAh battery. The accessories are still sparse for it, with the "best" one being the component display cables which allow the game play to be displayed on an HD TV. For those who are not HD TV owners, the composite cables (aka RCA cables) cannot partake in the same joy of playing games on the standard definition TV's, although they are still able to enjoy movies and images on their TV. Accessories are still not here for the PSP Slim, even though the system has been out for close to 2 months. One would have expected Sony to make some, but apparently they haven't yet. Enough on the geeky and mundane verbal hardware pornography...

(Zero's Note: For those wondering why I didn't opt for the Vader White value pack or the Daxter Silver value pack, it's because I didn't like the bundled games nor did I like the Vader graphic on the white PSP. I have plenty of Memory Stick Pro Duo's because my phone uses them as well.)

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles has a very unique intro movie... The narration sounds like it is in German, if I am wrong, feel free to correct me. The movie shows a very unholy ritual that reawakens Lord Dracula from his slumber with by anointing him with fresh blood. Even though this game follows the more old fashioned Belmont whip carrying lineage adventures, it refreshes things by using new skool technology with the ability to save automatically at end of levels, give the user the ability to level select, and the ability to do a "quick save" in the middle of a level. That is a good thing with consideration that no one likes passwords and that whole mess anyways that was remembered from the earlier Castlevania games from the early 1990's. For things that have "changed", there's quite a bit. The movie scenes are now changed from anime cut scenes to 3D computer generated ones with really crisp detail. The art goes more in favor of the "antiquated" drawing/painting style with more respect to the same sort of thing that emblazoned Symphony of The Night's art. If you are a fan of the Castlevania art movement that was more biased towards the anime look, you may be disappointed with the art for this game. The levels "pop" a bit at you, not like in Symphony of The Night or the two DS titles where only the graphical effects from combat or magic stood out. Some of the things within the levels were changed however to incorporate the "secrets" within the new Dracula X Chronicles packaging. We'll discuss this later on the review.

The games controls feel a tad stiff like a traditional whip user Castlevania game, so the movements are not quite fluid as say a more modern title like the DS title Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. For the nay sayers who may say "The controls plain suck!", they are just failing to realize the demographic of this game. Play Castlevania III on the NES, Super Castlevania IV for SNES,if you want more support on the "stiff controls"... Compared to those two, the game is a little more fluid. The game is a "one difficulty fits all" sort of game... So if you are not down with a challenge, this game may enrage or even frustrate you to insanity.

I will issue the disclaimer for those not used to older, traditional titles with short tempers to either wear your PSP wrist strap or avoid this game.

While the game is not sadistically hard like say the "Ghouls and Ghosts" franchise of Capcom, the levels seem to be challenging and one needs to have good timing at times (like with stages chock full of pitfalls and Medusa Heads flying around). Compared to the original Rondo of Blood which was unlocked, this new "remix" is actually pretty damn close to the original save for the graphics, sound effects & music, and minor level changes to incorporate the use of game unlockables. Dracula X Chronicles would be what I would deem a VERY faithful remake with respect to the original. This is something that would surely make any purist, true, die hard fan of the older Castlevania sing with joy, especially because it was better than the Super Nintendo rehash released in America as "Castlevania: Dracula X" with a lot of things were sacrificed or changed due to the limited abilities of the Super Nintendo.

The unlockables is where things get fun. In the main game, you can find the ORIGINAL versions of Rondo of Blood, Symphony of The Night, and "Peke" (A system card error mini game with regard to Rondo of Blood). There are particular criteria to get these games and when the condition has been fulfilled, the game is unlocked and may be played in the "Original Game" option on the title screen of Dracula X Chronicles. From Rondo of Blood (PC Engine), I would imagine it keeps true to the original Japanese title with respect to what I have played or read on reviews from sites like GameSpot or users on GameFAQs. Symphony of The Night was a real big treat to me, as it combined some interesting aspects from the Japanese Sega Saturn version with parts from the original Playstation release. The big treat I enjoyed was if you had the language set to "Japanese" for the audio dialogue in Dracula X Chronicles, that is also applied to Symphony of The Night. The dialogue is much more refined in this rendition, especially when you consider that the American release had terrible voice actors and a poorly translated to boot. If you remember the prelude level "Castlevania: Bloodlines" with the dialogue of Richter and Dracula on the American release... this line probably made you laugh:

Die monster!!! You don't belong here! - Richter Belmont.

The American voice actors are actually pretty good and I give them credit for being so much better. There are a few changes on some sound effects, but no changes in game play. The "changes" with respect to the Japanese Sega Saturn and Playstation version include the incorporation of 2 more familiars (the sprite and nose devil) and the ability to play Maria being the most notable ones. Truly a treat for those who cannot quite afford to purchase the original American release of Symphony of The Night but already own a PSP. As far as the "Peke" mini game, I have not unlocked that yet.

(Zero's Note: Yes, I am well aware that the XBOX 360 folks have the ability to purchase Symphony of The Night from XBOX Live. I encourage any person who owns an XBOX 360 with no interest to purchase a PSP to buy it.)

I can say that Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles is a good buy IF you are into traditional game franchises. If you're open to buying this remade classic gem, I advise that a good temper is required as well as wearing the PSP strap to avoid game induced rage. If you love Castlevania, this is one game you will not regret buying.

Please also see my edit about my new experiment with this headset. - Zero

A lot of sites (like C|Net's Review) gave this headset a terrible review complaining of the minor things like the weight of the headset was uncomfortable or the design was not adjustable. I felt those are more of "your mileage may vary" sort of commentary. At the time of this headset's release, not many phones had the A2DP profile, so that may have something to do with some of the unfavorable reviews. I will factor that the initial "buy-in" price ($130) during the headset's release rather expensive being another reason that the reviews came out so unfavorably on this headset. I would like to redeem this headset because I actually picked them up locally from a local retailer for half-off.

I originally wanted to pick up the Motorola HT820 headset, but when I read the poor battery life being the headset's failing with an estimate 3-4 hours of total over all life, I was a bit hesitant. The packaging doesn't even make mention of battery life, just that it's a stylish headset and functional at a price of $90. For me, a useful Bluetooth headset needs to have great battery life as being the first criteria and then design and function are the next criteria that must be fulfilled. The alternative that I was considering but hesitant on dropping the cash was the Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970 with the earbuds and pendant style form, but with a poor design with great battery life it was not worth the retail value of $130. Close to the two headsets was the Jabra BT620s headset but with a dramatic price change from $110 to $60. It was a diamond in the rough, but saving $30 was not a bad idea and I figured "why not?" It was a gamble, but I felt it was a worthy gamble as my experience would prove from my experience.

Unpacking the headset proves easy and same for preparations. The headset takes about 3 - 4 hours to completely charge. Also with the AC charger, there is a USB cable that allows you to use the headset as a wired computer headset and charge the headset at a slower pace. I will give Jabra kudos for making a great indicator system. The headphones have two clear rings that have 3 colors that light up according to status. Here's how it breaks down from the manual:

Left side - Solid blue: Pairing mode
Left side - Flashing blue: Linked Phone mode
Right side - Flashing blue: Linked Audio mode
Flashing red (Both sides): Low battery
Solid Red (Both sides): Charging
Solid Green (Both sides): Full charge complete

If you don't like looking like a club light strobe, you can kill the blue flash by simultaneously pressing and holding the call and media buttons together for 5 seconds and it will turn them off until the next recharge. Pairing is simple, hold down the call key until the left status lamp turns solid blue entering "Find Me" mode. Ask the phone to connect to it and enter the passkey to sync to the headset. For musical use, my phone (P990i) immediately recognized all of the functions such as being used as a headset for calls, a music output device, and track control was the real shocker. The power to skip tracks, play/pause/stop playback was mentioned with "limited compatibility" to devices, so it was something to really celebrate about.

As far as sound quality and tonal range... I feel that the device is sufficient for your casual music listener. The tonal range capability is pretty wide and the headset's performance does not favor one genre over another. My phone's equalizer settings show dynamic changes in the headset as well! This excited me a great deal, as a good dynamic range and great sound quality are good things to see from this headset. The only caveat is sometimes the sound transfer has hick-ups and gaps, but this was a problem when the phone was separated about 5 - 6 feet away from the headset. A minor set-back if anything. The surprising part was on tapping the right ear piece, it automatically loaded the media player. Something that I also didn't expect to be supported, much like the track skipping compatibility with my phone.

Tested Songs
"Apologize" Ft. OneRepublic by Timbaland
"Chop Me Up" Ft. Timbaland & Three-6 Mafia by Justin Timberlake
"Papercut/Big Pimpin" mash-up of Linkin' Park and Jay-Z
"Drumhead Pulsation" from the Guilty Gear Isuka Soundtrack
"What Hurts The Most" by Rascal Flatts
"Bloody Tears" from the Castlevania 20th Anniversary CD
"Adelaide" by Anberlin
"Bat Country" by Avenged Sevenfold
"Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead
"Humanity" by ATB

Edit about 24 hours later - I had a crazy experiment to try to listen to the radio while streaming the sound to the Bluetooth, but the only caveat is that my phone requires that you use the wired stereo headset as an antenna for radio signals. I would plug up the headset/antenna to my phone, then transfer the streaming radio broadcast to my headset for the experiment and I would be met with success. The funny part was there was no instances of skipping audio. I was listening to the radio for a straight 2 hours for a intensive test. The signal was crisp and clear with no problems. This leads me to a hypothesis that the Bluetooth chipset is not hindering the on board audio transfer and also that this is not a RAM related problem (aka memory leak)... I now personally believe that the Memory Stick Pro Duo slot is not reading the data fast enough for the data transfer to the Bluetooth stereo headset to properly process the sound. This problem may possibly be phone related and not due to the headset.

For calls... picking up calls and managing calls is rather simple. The calls come in stereo sound to the user resulting in very crisp quality. I would call two folks for test calls to see if I could debunk the poor reviews saying that the sound quality was poor on the receiving end. I would get called by my girlfriend Aurelia and later call my cousin Sol to do a test. Aurelia has a Blackberry Pearl on T-Mobile and Sol has a Sony Ericsson P910i on T-Mobile as well. Both reported that my voice came in very clear and without coming off as sounding tinney or echoing with reverberation. That pleased me a great deal.

The fusion of call and music management, I feel I would have to test multiple phones before I can offer a fair opinion on it... When a call comes in, the music immediately cuts out for my phone and I hear a beep tone letting me know a call is trying to come in. On picking up, the connection happens rather quickly... The only issue arises when the call ends and then the music resumes. Due to the poor amount of RAM that the P990i has on it (the primary culprit for many of its short comings), there's about a 5 second delay and the music then resumes. Not the smoothest transition unfortunately. This portion of the review, I really want to do a fair review on it... but I can't quite do it as I only have one available phone to test it out on. If you have a Bluetooth stereo compatible (A2DP) phone and would not mind me spending about 20 minutes to an hour to compile information on this portion of the review, please contact me, I can compensate for your time with food or something.

My closing thoughts on the Jabra BT620s are in favor of the headset ONLY if you pay about $60 or less for it. It definitely is not worth it if you're paying anymore than that price. The audio quality, simplicity, and design are great with the documented battery performance of 240 hours of standby, 16 hours of calls, and 14 hours of streaming music. The comfort level is debatable as some may feel the headphones are uncomfortable or too snug... This is the only "con" about the design as the "Street Style" (if you want to use Sony's name for the design) headphones are more of a "one size fits all" solution. Personally, I felt the headphones as very comfortable to my ears. With crisp sound quality from the musical part and clear calls on the phone side, the Jabra BT620 is a bargain buy for the gadget geek looking to get a value for cheap!

I offer a challenge to those who may be reading this and feel that my review was not fair: If anyone out there has a Motorola HT820 or a Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970 that they want me to do a "shoot-out" review, I am more than willing to take up the challenge and offer a fair "dissection" of the headset to the Jabra BT620s. The only part is, I cannot expense the purchase of the competing headsets. If you are willing to let me borrow yours or if you want to even spiff me one unit of the device for a link exchange or food and drink, I am more than willing to oblige. Contact me and we'll talk.

Let's get some background on Flock and it's relationship with Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox was the original browser that broke the mold from Internet Explorer basically crushing browsers like Netscape Navigator and even the early Opera browser. It was a fresh change of pace from the closed source principle of Internet Explorer as it allowed anyone to view the entire source code of the browser to make plug-ins and modifications to improve the browser. But due to the Mozilla Corporation blowing open a free browser to the market place and including the ability to even giving the world the source code for free... This would make a world where even the online experience could be changed and custom tailored for the end user.

Flock's principle that differentiates itself from a standard Firefox installation in one way... Rather than having to download and install things like specialty blogger, RSS, media, account integration plug-ins and applets, they are all built in to the browser. From the Flock "About Us" Page, they say that how people use the modern day web browser is basically that of a nerve center to the online world and we have regular habits or accounts that we just have to check out.

I am not much of a social person online, but I do like blogging and reading RSS streams quite a bit... So I figured I'd give myself a challenge: Use Flock for one week and then do a comprehensive review. I can say that I am actually a bit shocked at how the week has turned out.

I would pull a pre-compiled version of Flock for Ubuntu Linux from GetDeb.net, as I am not much into trying to compile from source unless I absolutely have to. For users of other operating systems, there are versions for Mac OS X and also Windows folks too. I don't feel secure on my Windows box so I have not installed it there. For the OS X end, I don't have a machine set-up for testing... If you want to review it, I will gladly hot-link your review to mine in exchange for the same.

The install was rather painless. It performs like a regular install of Firefox, but it was able to copy my settings, preferences and bookmarks from Firefox on a click. After the details finalized, the installer asks if I want to lock in Flock as the default... but for all intents and purposes, I would say "No" because Firefox is customized for secure items and questionable websites much better than Flock currently is.

The experience is quite unique... the "Home" page is called "My World", the default "nerve center" for your browsing experience. There's a set of links to do things like post to your blog direct from the browser, upload videos to YouTube or images to Flickr/Photobucket, or check out your bookmarks in del.icio.us, provided you have logged into those services. On the top right are tiny icons to indicate which services have integrated with the browser and another set of services that have not been linked to Flock. On the main page are links to your most recently visited book marks, the top 3 newest RSS feeds from each site you have a RSS session with, and then the latest media from your favorite links in another column. Other than that... the browsing experience is much in the same vein as Firefox as far as stability goes.

The difference with Flock is that if you log into your media services such as YouTube, Photobucket, and Flickr, the button for the "Media bar" will pop up a bar on the top that will contain streams with a thumbnail of an image that link to the respective image or YouTube video. The image uploader is nice as it will do batch uploading to Flickr or Photobucket natively in the browser, rather than having to go through the web based uploaders of the sites which typically limit you to a max upload of 5-6 images a session, unless you subscribe for the premium member services. The blog client works well and there is not much to write about... The blog compatibility is hopefully getting bigger, because I can't quite blog to Vox from it yet, but I can only hope that it will be addressed in the 1.0 Final build.

Security is a big thing that needs more revamping with Flock, in my personal opinion... I mean, it's fine for minor things like social use of social networking sites, but I wouldn't dare to say it could replace my stock Firefox install. With things like more network integration (like Facebook is coming with the 1.0 Final build) and more security issues to be addressed, Flock will be a browser to watch for development.

Overall, if you like being networked to everything and see the use of the web browser much like the folks of the Flock Development Team... you will be very pleased! If you are more of a blogger and news reader, Flock does a great job at what it does for helping you keep track of things. I can recommend this browser to folks who love the connectivity but also want the stability of the Firefox engine.

A while ago, I journeyed out to The State Fair of Texas for a juvenile return to my childish youth. I had last gone to the fair back in 2004 and I was wondering if anything changed. I remembered back in 2005, there was the wild rage over "Fried Coke" and supposedly this year... there was more creative fried entries, such as the notable "Fried Latte".

I went with a modest 20 tickets at $10. The only con to the fair is that the currency is tickets. Games, food, attractions all cost tickets. It is a pain but it must tolerated to get into the spirit the event. I had an chili tamale to start my journey... It was rather tasty with savory ground beef and lightly spicy chili. Most of the "amusements" are more in the town carnival respect, something that's more of a "tourist trap" if anything. I would try one of the "famous" Fletcher's corn dogs which is still great even 2 years later.

I'd wander around the automotive show rooms, which still remain "segregated" as always. One for domestic American cars and another for import Japanese cars and some branches of domestic cars. No European cars, oddly. After wandering and gawking at cars... It'd be time for a snack again. The Fried Latte would be the next item to try. That was interesting... a cold ice cream like mixture of ground coffee beans topped on a bed of crispy strips of some sort, then covered in a whipped cream and topped with some more coffee grounds. A tasty treat, but a bit messy though... I would probably advise anyone trying it to have some sort of drink to wash the sugar down.

After some more walking around the fair grounds to explore everything... the next hint of sweet hit. Closest thing in proximity to taste: Fried Cheesecake. A simple treat, just cheesecake filling wrapped around and then deep fried. I opted out of the decadent strawberry topping with just a hit of powered sugar. That was a truly savory treat... It was not over the top like the fried latte and I was very much glad about that. As always, make sure to have a drink... it will help wash down the grease and sugar.

Much of the other "food attractions" were just stuff from some of the restaurants in town just trying to promote business. A lot of things seemed lack luster to be hawking their stuff at the fair... like southern fried chicken, burgers, or even pizza. I would try to wander some more until I could find something really out of the norm to try... My last thing on the journey was the fried cookie dough. The 2006 winner of the most creative fried treat. It's just a simple treat as well... The tasty part of it is just the crackle of the shell for the warm and gooey interior of cookie dough and chocolate chips. This is one item I will say that you NEED water or the sugar content will figuratively choke you with how rich it is.

The fair successfully displays itself as a festival of fried deliciousness, but have a nice expense dedicated to it if you want to be selfishly decadent in the rapture of taste. I went with a dear friend and sharing the expense was much less painful between the both of us. If you can go with a group of close friends, I would highly endorse that option.

I have been terribly backlogged in stuff and haven't had time to write a proper review on things... so... I would like to get that squared away.

Strapya World [Legend Cross] Collection Phone Charms
I am one of the people who falls into line with the Asian (primarily Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese) belief that a person should have a lucky talisman around them. Talismans are thought to be a trinket or charm to give the bearer protection or have properties to positively influence the lives of their users. In the modern day, Asian societies have had a thing for putting cell phone charms on their mobile phones as a means of protecting themselves or boosting certain aspects of their lives. Things like anti-evil wards, money blessings, empowering health, and even charms to boost ones romantic life or for making a wish. I was looking for a charm or strap to put on my next phone, because when I owned the Nokia E62 and the Palm Treo 680... these enterprise communicators just simply lack a place for phone charms or wrist straps. I was initially looking to get a phone strap that had a charm that senses the cell phone tower waves when the phone receives a call, for the few times I put the phone on "silent" mode on my desk, face down with out the vibrate.

To my dismay, the selection for those type of charms is rather limited. But Google would eventually lead me to Strapya World. It is one of my favorite places for getting something unique for the people and friends I care about dearly after my great experience there save for one small imperfection. Their selection is unique and huge so it's pretty easy to find something for everyone. There was one section that had me interested... the luck and magic charms section. I liked the designs in this particular section mainly from how interesting they are. The Legend Cross series piqued my curiosity as the design is unique, but the price won't break wallets. I liked the designs so much that I bought all 5 designs. The nice part is that they looked far better in person than the online pictures give them credit for.

The only imperfection with my set was that on the "Pledge of Peace" or "Gladius" (which is on the package) cross... The blue "gem" wasn't glued on properly and fell off during the shipping. I managed to fix it, so no harm there. I really liked the "Red Devil" or "Chaos" cross the most, personally, as it fits with how I am the "black sheep" of the family. I will post pictures of the charms later on with better detail and post repairs for the "Gladius" cross. Each cross was about a little over $4.50 USD, but totally worth it.

Playing Around with a LIVE T-Mobile version of the Motorola RAZR2 V9
With October 15th looming in the horizon of T-Mobile USA's launch of the RAZR V9, people are hyped over the phone's release to T-Mobile. Initially, people were pissed that T-Mobile's rendition was going to be the weakest of them all without expandable memory card access being the buzz kill... Until there was a shocking change in plans. The T-Mobile version got tweak with 2GB of flash memory built into the phone! The fun didn't stop there... The T-Mobile one uses the newest version of the pure Linux operating system. As far as the features go, nothing has changed from the other versions for Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, and so on.

The T-Mobile shop had one to play around with today (October 13th) and frankly... I am impressed that Motorola is finally in a positive step forward for progress. The new system that the phone is based on is pretty quick and responsive, unlike the Java/UNIX fusion system or even the problematic P2K system. The fit and finish of the phone is very sharp. It is a cut above how the RAZR of the past was and even the "upgraded" versions such as the V3i. Once again, it has the flash and wow effect that the predecessor (the V3) had on the market when it first came out... I can already see eBay or craigslist sales go wild over the RAZR2 much the same vein as the RAZR did back in the day. Personally, the 2GB built into the phone is a great move for those who aren't technologically knowledgeable, because they don't have to go "What memory card do I need?". It's just a plug-n-play affair. This is a godsend for folks like my father who is not the most technologically advanced guy when it comes to phones... but he does love music.

As it stands, my father may be getting one when I sign up... so you may be seeing some live photos and a more detailed review at some point. Keep an eye out here if and when the phone comes in.

Sony Ericsson HBH-PV705 Bluetooth Headset
With family blowing up my phone every now and then, they usually have had an ironic timing to notify me about something before I come home or leave a place. Stuff like me doing a stint in a grocery store and then to see my phone ring on driving home... I don't like picking up my phone while I drive, so I just ignore the ringer and just drive. When I get home, it's a situation of "Didn't you get my message? I was trying to call you and ask you to buy this one ingredient for us" and I end up doing a second trip for posterity. So I figured for my own sanity and my family's sanity, I should pick one up for cheap. Found this one for $20 off of the "retail" price that the SonyStyle Online shop was selling it for.

After the headset charged up, I would do the pairing. It was rather painless. After the pairing, the phone worked with the headset well. Once the authentication is configured, the headset automatically pairs to the device immediately. This is much better than my experience with the experience I got from trying to pair a Motorola headset with a RAZR V3, that was actually a really sour experience. The sound quality is crisp and clear, easily a "bang-for-your-buck" deal. The headset is not compatible with MP3 ringtones and the headset had a great little chime that's sure to get your attention. The buttons have a good tactile feel and make a satisfying click so you know that you're not hallucinating if you clicked something or not. With a documented battery life (from the manual) of 12 hours of talk time and 300 hours on standby. That's pretty good for a down to business headset that is simply no-nonsense and just does it's job sort of issue. Sure, it's no Jawbone... but for a basic headset, it's one hell of a deal.

Lately I have been on a Sony Ericsson kick as far as phones go... I don't know why, but they have won me over with their recent slew of phones for reliability factor and features. I mean, your "function and fashion" contenders like Motorola and Nokia should take note... You don't have to build a super complex phone and mark up the price or sacrifice functionality and design just to drive price down. They have proven that very well as of lately. Nokia used to make pretty devices for cheap and great functionality, even to this day, I am fondly reminded of my first mobile phone that I bought myself... a Nokia 3120 tri-band GSM phone.

But nowadays... there's a terrible schism between the cheap end and high end for Nokia. Get loaded up on features and you'll pay a fortune for the phone (N95 or N-Series in general) and the same if you go for the prettiest phone (the 8800 Sirocco edition). Go too low end and Nokia begins gutting things out like MP3 ringtones or even quality materials for a good fit and finish.

Motorola ever since they moved past the "triplets series" (V600 being one of the hallmarks) and into the RAZR's market (fashion). I will give Motorola some credit to bring fashion to the masses, as the RAZR is almost a cult icon of pop culture. Don't believe me? See Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Cloud's RAZR-esque phone as one example or the number of companies who have emulated it. Just Motorola's terms in development of user friendly phone software is a tad... dated? At first it was a P2K system which had its issues... I still remember my RAZR crashing back in the day. Heck, my girlfriend's ROKR has severe stability issue such as crashing in midst of a phone call with her friend! They would delve into the smart phone business with a Linux based system to try trumping the Symbian S40/S60, Symbian UIQ, and Windows Mobile crowd, but there was one problem... They made claims that developers could jump in, but they didn't really release a software development kit (SDK for short). The new consumer phones now use a hybrid Java/Unix environment which isn't much of a step forward, at least in my opinion.

Ericsson and Sony made a joint venture in 2001 merging the Ericsson mobile phone manufacturer with the Japanese consumer electronics company for those curious, as referred to their Wikipedia entry.

Sony Ericsson has been one to make pretty reliable phones, the early ones just couldn't keep up with the "big guns" of the fashionable consumer cell phone industry. While Motorola just pushed faster and faster with more features in smaller shells, people just got bored of the Sony Ericsson phones being too "boring". But it wasn't until Sony Ericsson had a unique idea... why not marry together a Sony product line into a phone? At the time this idea came to fruition... no one really liked it as "integration" devices seemed to be such a niche market. The Motorola ROKR E1 failed because they tried to muck up the P2K system with a bloated Java iTunes app and even some of the ROKR's were selectively quadband and most were triband in similar vein to the previous ancestor... the Motorola E398. With this fact in mind... They carefully fused the great parts of the Walkman line and merged with the reliability of the Sony Ericsson line for one hell of a fusion product. The media player side was simple and to the point. No clunky Java app, something natively based within the phone's operating system. Combine that with a shell that was emblazoned with the Walkman colors of white, black, and orange containing a stable operating system and there you had it. The birth of the Walkman phone by Sony Ericsson. On looking back with Wikipedia's entry... that was back in 2005! Then there was last year (2006) when Sony Ericsson did the same fusion for the Cybershot line introducing high end consumer camera parts into a cell phone

They have a wide line of phones now and the one on feature being the W300i. Unfortunately, mine is locked to AT&T, so I can't get too in-depth about the software side of things, from AT&T butchering the firmware to death. The phone's shape is very friendly and has a great tactile feel to it. It has a "throw it against the wall and not give a damn" sort of build that reminds me much of my first Nokia. I am not about to mar up the phone and test it, because I rather like it. It has a monochrome black and orange screen on the exterior being the only "downside" to the modern phones out there, but it works rather nicely to display simple information. Not like you need to display their entire data or life... The camera on it is a simple VGA one, so don't expect intense 3.2 megapixel quality that you'd find from a Cybershot (K-series) phone or some of the newer Walkman phones. There is a dedicated "Walkman" button to launch the media player which is just plain simple. Much like my P990i, this phone can also tune into the radio provided you have the wired headset plugged in. It can do RDS so you can see song titles as long as the station uses RDS to send out the information.

The phone has some "unique" features that really stand out for the type of device it is. There is an infrared port to beam things over, that's more of a "business" device item for shooting over digital business cards. There is also the matter on the memory card support. Sony makes claim that the largest supported size is a 512mb Memory Stick Micro (or M2 for short), but buyers from private shops and some forums say that the W300i can read all 4GB from a 4GB card. That is awesome on its own right, because the phone is as small as an iPod nano but albeit a little thicker. The "spine" of the hinge is like a loop, so it allows the hanging of a neckstrap for those who work at the gym or run, it makes carrying the phone a little easier!

Expect me to elaborate more on this phone after I degunk it of AT&T's grubby software and make it as good as the unbranded international edition.

I know some people remember about June of 2006 I had a Sony Ericsson T637 that I sourly hated because it was still conformed to MIDI ringers. I would end up loading the MIDI version of the Mega Man X prelude level song just to deal with it. I will give that phone one thing... The stability was a nice change versus the pains of the slow and dated P2K system that my previous Motorola SLVR L6. It wouldn't be until after that when the newer Sony Ericsson phones would be much more well rounded and even robust as devices. My cousin would end up getting a P910i which he loves to death even to this day. Many of my friends have jumped on the bandwagon with the Sony Ericsson Cybershot K800i 3.2 megapixel camera phone and have had nothing but praise for the phone.

After many dead fish in the water about buying my Treo just because it lacked a sync cable, I ended up expensing $4 for it and finally got serious biters. One of them being an offer for a Sony Ericsson P990i as a straight up trade. Sure, it required a drive to Watauga/Fort Worth, Texas, but it was more than worth it for being lost about 1 hour on the cluttered web of highways. I would get to the trader's home and would receive a complete suite of goods unlike the stale offers online for the same phone but it would only be the charger cable, sync cable and nothing else. Here was the contents of what I received:

• Sony Ericsson P990i smartphone and built-in-stylus
• Keypad flip removal kit and replacement hinge plate
• Wired stereo headset
• USB data cable
• OEM replacement charger cable
• Desk cradle
• Extra stylus
• Full size Memory Stick Pro Duo to Memory Stick Pro adapter
  
• 512MB Memory Stick Pro Duo (by SanDisk)
  
• 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo High Speed (by Sony)

I was rather impressed by the completeness of this kit, and I have been rather happy with the trade. Enough on that whole bit, let's get to the good stuff and talk "essential" specs! Specs are from the Sony Ericsson P990i digital manual.

Signal Bands: GSM 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 2100
Extra connectivity: GPRS and 3G, no EDGE, 802.11b, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support
Storage and Expansion: 60mb on board, Memory Stick Pro Duo readable up to 4gb
Imaging Devices: VGA video phone camera and a 2 megapixel camera with flash and auto focus
Operating System: Symbian 9.1 with UIQ 3.0
FM Radio Connectivity: 87.5 - 108.0 frequencies, 20 channels may be memorized.

The phone is well rounded, but well with my final days of AT&T, it's hard living with a tri-band world phone without an 850 frequency on the baseband chips. Some spots where the the 850 signals rain supreme, AT&T fans will have an issue with this. I don't mind it, because I am leaving for T-mobile anyhow so it is a small price to pay for a well rounded smartphone. The UIQ 3 interface is rather clean in shape and style in addition to simple for users of smartphone devices. Some who have used Windows Mobile devices may either find this clean and simple or feel they are in a dumb down interface. The Sony Jog-wheel is nice to shoot through the device settings with one hand, but the only thing counter-intuitive is the keypad lock. It's not a pair of keypress combinations anymore like on my cousin Sol's Sony Ericsson P910i... it's a physical slider key that you have to slide. Not too much of a bother, but I will agree with others on the web on that one... it is a little annoying.

Feature wise, it is well equipped. Phone book and calendar have limitless capacity for phone book entries and events, The alarm clock is pretty loud for me, which is VERY good and highly essential. The media player functions are rather robust and show the foundations for the Sony Ericsson Walkman series PDA phones as there are a list of equalizer settings on various modes to enhance the music from it. The P990i is the first phone I have owned to have a radio feature and it's really somewhat nice to have. It comes in handy for me, as sometimes I do wish I had a radio in my room, but the feature solves the problem and keeps the noise level down for my family. The camera does the job, but it's by no means a Cybershot series phone with only 2 megapixels and an LED flash/lamp.

Things I have not tested are the capabilities of Bluetooth 2.0 like wireless stereo or multi-linking devices, 3G video phone calls because I just don't have the capabilities to do that just yet. The Bluetooth thing, I will need a stereo headset for that which will cost a chunk of coin. The video calls won't happen until T-Mobile unrolls out their 3G network stuff later this year or early 2008. The 3G isn't compatible with AT&T so I miss out there. I really like the phone, just I can't really give it a fair review when my provider doesn't like to support one band of service... Expect me to do a more fair review on call quality when I shift over to T-Mobile on October 27th.