So it looks like our friends over at MobileSyrup have found something out.  It looks like Rogers Communications is going to be carrying the LG GT500 Puccini.  

Not much is known about this phone and we could not find any info on it over at GSMArena, but according to the article it is similar to the LG KF750 Secret in that it is a very slim phone.  It also will have a 5MP camera and video capabilities.  It will also have GPS support.

Although not much is known and this is only a recent announcement found by MobileSyrup we will be waiting eagerly to see if Rogers Communications does release the LG GT500 Puccini soon

This week brings a new phone to the PureMobile site.  We have the new Nokia E75.  This is a different take on from Nokia’s past phones.  The main thing you notice right away is that the E75 has a full QWERTY slide out keyboard

With the Nokia E75 you get a fully equipped phone.  It has Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0.  Basically all the features you expect are there from this smartphone.  It even comes with an accelerometer sensor, which is the same thing that the iPhone comes with.  It lets you do things by moving your phone.

Overall the look of the phone is nice.  It fits well in the hand and looks like it will give other smartphones a run for their money.

With more then 5 hours of talk time and up to 25 hours of stand by time you can talk, text and email to your hearts content.  If you are looking for a high end slider phone then look no further then the Nokia E75.

[image courtesy: Expansys]

Here’s an interesting article we came across in the Montreal Gazette a few weeks ago but are only able to write about it now.

It seems that the “green” electronics has made it’s way to cell phones now.  According to the article

…the average lifespan of a BlackBerry, Razr or iPhone is just over 18 months….

and

…When older models get replaced with new ones, consumers usually toss them in the garbage or let them gather dust in a kitchen drawer. Less than 5% of cellphones get reused or recycled.

What is even more amazing is that Fido is offering the Renew which is a carbon neutral phone.  This means that it technically doesn’t pollute.  This is achieved by buying carbon offsets from CarbonFund.org.  

…They also include a prepaid envelope to ship the phone back to Motorola for proper recycling, less charging time required and no PVC, lead, exposed nickel or other hazardous materials.  Lastly the Renew’s body is made from recycled water bottles…

There is also a phone coming from Samsung called

…Blue Earth, a solar-powered touchscreen phone, which can generate enough electricity to make a call at any time using a mini-sheet of solar panels on the back. It’s constructed from a plastic called PCM, also made from recycled water bottles.

What does the future hold for cell phones?  We guess only time will tell but for now it does look like companies are doing their part to make the world a better place for everyone.

Phones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards feature sophisticated looks and spacious QWERTY keypads. These phones allow for quick thumb typing and are designed aiming at the young crowd. Phones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards are extremely functional and using them is like using a computer keyboard. These phones are highly useful for professionals also, for example, it is easier to type an email or edit an office document on a QWERTY keyboard as compared to a normal cell phone keyboard. At times these handsets appear to be expensive, but they are true value for money with their useful features and in-built applications. Here are some of the popular phones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards: 

LG Mobile KS360: The LG KS360 features an ergonomically designed keyboard that offers an easy, fast, and fun way of typing messages without tiring your thumbs. The users can send SMS, IM, email and access social networking sites through the high speed internet connectivity offered by this phone. This sophisticated phone comes with the 2.4″ QVGA touch screen display, 2MP camera, touch screen dialing, MicroSD card slot, MP3 and AAC audio and MPEG4 and H.263 with playback, WAP 2.0 browser and more.

HTC Touch Pro: The slide out QWERTY keyboard is among the most finger-friendly, comfy and practical keyboards. The keyboard’s slightly raised keys, soft-touch finish and elegant design makes typing extremely easy. The HTC Touch Pro supports SMS, MMS, email, and instant messaging along with support for viewing and editing office documents. The 3.15 MP camera with the autofocus and flash capabilities offers high quality pictures. The phone also has a touch-responsive interface, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, miniUSB and much more. 

Samsung T459 Gravity: The Samsung T459 Gravity features a QWERTY keyboard along with normal phone keypad. The exclusive slider design discloses the backlit QWERTY keyboard without making the phone look bulky. The full slide-out QWERTY keyboard supports instant messaging, text, multimedia and video messaging. This striking phone is furnished with the features like 1.3-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, Bluetooth v2.0, MPEG4 player, MP3 player and more.  

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1: The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is among the most keenly anticipated windows mobile phones. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard allows fast and easy typing. This unique cell phone comes with the sophisticated and distinct design, 3-inch touch screen display and an arc slider design for the best viewing angle. The other features included in this cell phone are 3.15 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.0, MS office, web browser and more. 

Having a full keyboard is always a nice feature.  It makes texting and messaging much simpler.  There are always alternatives but among the most popular right now the LG KS360 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Apple’s iPhone is one of the most revolutionary devices that have hit the mobile phone market in the recent times. The secret behind the popularity of Apple iPhone is the number of unique applications that can be installed on the device. There are several developers who creating useful and exciting iPhone applications and these are available from Apple’s iTunes store. The list of iPhone applications is quite long and everyday more and more applications (free and paid) are being added at regular intervals. This article aims at discussing some of the popular iPhone applications: 

Wikipanion: This is the mobile version of Wikipedia. For Wikipedia addicts, this opens a vast source of information right on their fingertips. The additional features of this application are the ability to open the pages in various font sizes and languages.

Facebook:  iPhone makes using Facebook much easier. You can view the list of your friends, your profile, and inbox on one screen and you can also start a conversation with anyone, who is online, instantaneously. Another advantage is that you do not have to log in every time you want to view your facebook account.

Bloomberg: A great application for businesspersons and those interested in the stock market. It offers news, stock quotes, top performing companies, market trend analysis and more. 

AOL Instant Messenger:  For instant messaging enthusiasts, the AOL messenger is a unique application. The messenger works in the same manner as one on the PC and you can do all the tasks like chatting with your friends and sending files to them. 

iPhonegas:  This is an application which is fast gaining popularity because of its universal appeal. With the gas prices on the rise, this application shows you the nearest gas stations without having to spend a drop of gas on searching for them. This intuitive application gives you a list of the nearest gas stations just at the input of your zip. 

iDoodle Light: This application is similar to the MS paint application in a way that it lets users draw pictures. This application, however, comes with many advanced options including the option to replay the drawings, saving the files and emailing them.

Pandora: This application brings the popular online radio to your iPhone. You just have to input the music artist of your choice and the application will play songs from the artists who play the same genre of music.

Other popular applications include Shazam, Ebuddy, Yelp, Flycas, One Trip Shopping List, Eventful, and iMovies. Then there are application related to music, sports, travel, weather and several other interests. At PureMobile.ca, you can buy the iPhone at affordable prices and also shop for various iPhone accessories like earpieces, screen protectors, phone cases, and iPhone docks. www.puremobile.ca provides you with a wide range of the latest cell phone from the top manufacturers in the world at very competitive rates. Browse through the website for more information.

Cell Phones Through Time

What would we do without cell phones? Well, with more cell phones than there are people in Europe and 72% of the Canadian population active cell phone users, let’s just say, it would probably be like taking away electricity for much of the Western population. Oh how things change in only 36 yeas.

The history of the modern cell phone begins on April 3, 1973, when Director of Research and Development at Motorola, Dr. Martin Cooper, made the first cell phone call ever, to his rival, Dr. Joel S. Engel, head of research at At&T’s Bell labs, as he walked down the streets of New York City. The Motorola DynaTAC cost $3,995, weighed over 2 pounds and took over10 hours to charge. But its large size, high cost and overall impracticality didn’t quite make it very appealing to the general public.

In 1983 the Motorola_Dyna 8000X became the first truly portable mobile phone on the US market, with an impressive one hour of battery life and the power to store up to 30 phone numbers!

The Nokia-Mobira Cityman, which came out in 1987 got a huge publicity boost when Mikkhail Gorbachev was pictured using one to make a call to his communications minister in Moscow. It weighed 800 grams and cost EUR 4,560.

In 1987, Japanese manufacturer NEC launched the NEC 9 A, which became the fastest selling handheld mobile phone. It was smaller, lighter and had more features than any other handheld mobile phone.

In 1989, Motorola MicroTAC became the first-ever flip phone. It weighed 12.3 ounces and retailed between $2, 495 and $3, 495

In the nineties, cell phones and pagers became a huge fad. The nineties also marked the widespread adoption of personal computers and the Internet. In 1993, the BellSouth/IBM Simon Personal Communicator became the first mobile phone to add PDA features: phone, pager, calculator, address book, fax machine and e-mail device, for a total cost of $900.

The Motorola StarTac came out in 1996, paving the way for sleek, lightweight (3.1 ounces) cell phones.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, it was all about the candy bar-style phones available in all sorts of colours. You could talk for 3.3 hours, they had internal antennas, PIM features and fit 5 lines of text.

In 2000, the Kyocera QCP6035 introduced the SmartPhone which cost $400-$500 and was the first Palm-based phone to be widely available to users. It only had 8MB of memory though.

The first commercial camera phone was the J-SH04 made by Sharp Corporation, which had an integrated CCD sensor and came out in 2001.

In 2002, the BlackBerry 5810 became the first to offer voice capabilities.

By late 2007, Apple came out with its long awaited iPhone, an internet connected multimedia smartphone. The iPhone featured a touch sensitive screen, 2 megapixel camera, the ability to sync iTunes to the phone, and more than 25000 apps. In 2007, the iPhone was named “invention of the year” by Times Magazine.

Recently we were thinking of ways that cell phones could be used other then for phone calls, text messages and surfing the internet.  So we polled the staff at PureMobile and here are the top ideas that we came up with

Computer Screen Captures:  Who hasn’t run into a problem on the computer and then later while telling a friend or someone that could help you and not being able to explain exactly what happened?  Well why not take out your cell and take a picture of the screen to show someone later

Cabling:  Have you ever cabled a home stereo system?  Have you ever moved?  It can be a real pain to remember where all those cables went.  Why not use your phone’s camera to take photos of the back of any electronic device so you know where the cables went.

Car Parking:  Who doesn’t forget their car from time to time?  Does anyone remember The Simpsons espisode where they go to Itchy and Scratchy land and they have to remember they are in the Itchy lot?  They pan out to see hundreds of cars in that lot.  Alright so nothing’s that bad but still we’ve all forgotten where we parked at least once.  Well why not take a photo and give yourself a better idea of exactly where you are.

Rent A Car: A good way to make sure not to get hit with extra charges when you bring the car back is to do a through inspection before hand and take photos.  Since you will most likely have you phone on you when you do it why not use the camera so you can store it for handy proof later

Security Weapon:  Have you ever been in a another country?  Well next time before you get into that taxi be safe and take a picture of the driver and the license plate.  This way if anything does happen you can take the cell phone’s photos to the authorities.

Shopping Alone:  This has happened to everyone.  You go shopping alone and find something that you want an opinion on or you want to know if it’s the right item.  What do you do?  Well you can buy it and hope for the best or take a photo with your phone and MMS it to the person you want the opinion from.  Hopefully you can get an almost instant answer and know exactly what you need to do

As a mirror:  Snap a quick picture of yourself to make sure everything is the way you want it.

We are sure there are other creative things you can do with your phone’s camera.  Why not email us and let us know.

Business phones are useful for people who want to be in touch with their business even when they are on the move. Every businessman has his own requirements when it comes to a business phone; while some prefer style, others go for functionality. There are several features that are common in every business phone and these include an ability to send and receive email, along with displaying and editing office documents. Here are a few features that you should look for while buying a business phone:

Battery Life: One of the most important features of a business phone, as you might be using the phone for long periods of time. With great battery life, you can ensure that your work doesn’t stop and there are no interruptions when you are making calls. 

Good Email Client: Being in touch constantly has become an important aspect of a business. Businessmen nowadays are constantly on the move and need to access emails. A phone with a good email client allows one to send and receive emails anytime, anywhere.

QWERTY Keyboard: A QWERTY keyboard is an essential feature in business phones. Typing an email with a normal phone keypad can be time consuming and cumbersome. A QWERTY keypad makes it easy to type emails and also adds speed to the typing as the keypad is similar to a QWERTY keyboard.

Extended Memory: Business phones need to store a lot of data, such as emails, word documents, excel sheets and media files. Having an expandable memory space is an absolute essential in a business phone. Extra memory makes sure that you never run out of space while storing essential data. 

Security Features: A lot of critical information is either stored in a cell phone or is sent and received using a cell phone. Good security features ensure that critical information is safe. Many phones also offer the choice of data encryption and passwords that can protect sensitive information.

Additional features that you can look for in a business phone are touch screen, GPS, UMTS (for roaming), USB charging, Bluetooth support, organizer applications and sync facility with MS Outlook and calendar.

Camera mobile phones have exclusively modernized photography and offer an amazing way to click pictures on the move. These astonishing phones allow you to easily and instantly capture the precious and enticing moments of life. With the ability to send and receive pictures, camera phones also allow you to share your memorable moments with friends and family members. Due to the tremendous advantages and the increasing demand of these phones, every cell phone brand these days has a large variety of camera phones. Here are some of the top selling camera cell phones:

Nokia N95: This dual slider cell phone features a 5 mega-pixel auto-focus camera fixed with a Carl Zeiss lens, flash and a mechanical shutter. Nokia N95 also allows video conferencing and recording movies in DVD quality. This stylish cell phone comes with the 8GB hard drive, Bluetooth 2.0, MP3/ACC media playback facility, WAP 2.0/xHTML browser and more. Nokia N95 is available in colors like silver, plum, black, pink and red.

LG Mobile KE970 Shine: LG KE970 Shine is an eye-catching slide-design mobile phone with a 2 MP auto focus camera. The mobile phone derives the name ‘Shine’ from its shiny stainless steel body and a large LCD display. The other features of this sturdy cell phone include MP3 player, microSD memory card support, USB and Bluetooth V1.2 and more. LG KE970 Shine is available in color silver, pink, gold and more.

Samsung D900i: This fully functional, good-looking phone is a slide-up design cell phone with a 3.13 mega pixel camera. Samsung SGH-D900i is the thinnest slider phone and features the latest multimedia technology. With the features like document viewer, TV-output function, Bluetooth stereo headset (A2DP) function and more, this cell phone is perfect for business professionals and music lovers. This amazing cell phone is available in wine red and black color.

Sony Ericsson S500:  A slim slider phone with the 2.0 mega pixel camera. The cell phone has a unique interface which automatically changes the visuals on the desktop with the changing of season or the turning of day into night. This stunning cell phone comes packed with the features like Bluetooth 2.0, media player, expandable memory stick slot, web browser and more. Sony Ericsson S500 comes in colors like mysterious green and spring yellow.

These are just some of the many great camera phones currently on the market.  If these don’t interest you maybe the Sony Ericsson W905 will or the soon to be released Nokia N97

As cell phone technology has evolved, people have found new and rather unexpected uses for their cell phones. Cell phones now come with a myriad of features but few have spawned more uses than the camera/camcorder feature, which is available on nearly all current phones.

Case and point, uses for cell phone cameras have evolved just as quickly as the technology in them. The original intent behind camcorder phones was to enable cell phone users to send video messages to friends and family. Now cell phone cameras both aid and thwart criminal activity, record extraordinary situations (i.e. natural disasters) and are also used by people for bootlegging purposes (i.e. recording concerts, live performances, movies, etc.)

Most recently, people have started recording both short and feature length films entirely with their cell phone cameras. Sometimes referred to as ‘Cellular Cinema’ their popularity has grown so much that entire film festivals now exclusively feature films made on cell phones.

This is an excerpt taken from the Pocket Films Festival website: “The Pocket Films Festival explores the potential for audio-visual expression that lies hidden in a “practical high-tech toy,” and through various media, aims to construct an ideal method of communication that excites our sensibilities – something not yet obvious even to artists.”

They acknowledge the medium is still young and not yet taken seriously by most artists. Those on the vanguard of cellular cinema don’t allow this to affect their artistic endeavors as new cell phone films pop up on a daily basis.

Here are some examples taken from Youtube that show some of the creativity coming out of cellular cinema (Warning! Artsy Videos Ahead):

Mankind is No Island

Kung Fu Film

I Miss You

Man with a Cell Phone Camera

Cell Phone Video Collage

Cell Phone Car Chase

Cell Phone Cinematography