Nokia C3 review #Nokia #C3 #Mobile #Handsets #NokiaReview

Nokia C3 review.

 

Introduction

Nokia C3 is young and social, simple and reliable. Messaging and social networking are the very heart of this handset. But are they enough of a head-turner to become a phone's key selling points? Sure thing! Just add a pinch of charisma and hang a price tag fit for the masses and you've got yourself a recipe for a true love story.
At its Indonesia launch, the phone drew massive crowds and it seems success in Europe is only a matter of time – with a price tag of about 100 euro. Compromises are always implied in this price bracket but the Nokia C3 does well to focus all attention on its strengths. It’s a budget package – no doubt about that – but so wonderfully balanced. It has all the relevant features and the target audience isn’t likely to miss what’s not there.

Nokia C3 official photos
A QWERTY messenger focused on the basics, the Nokia C3 is an excellent upgrade option for the budget-minded. And social networking isn’t just a thing for marketing to work with. The full QWERTY keyboard, dedicated Messaging and Contacts keys, along with Wi-Fi connectivity round off a solid package that will give the right user all the performance they need.

Key features

• QWERTY messenger bar
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi support
• Solid SNS integration on the homescreen and with dedicated buttons
• 2.4" 256K-color QVGA display with excellent sunlight legibility
• 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera
• QVGA video recording at 15fps
• Series 40 UI, 6th edition
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio
• Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Standard microUSB port
• microSD card slot (8GB supported, 2GB included)
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Great audio quality
• Reasonable price

Main disadvantages

• No 3G
• Low-grade camera, no autofocus, no flash
• Poor video recording
• S40 is outdated, never mind the visual updates
• No multi-tasking
• Doesn't charge off the microUSB port
• No USB cable in the retail box
• No office document viewer
• No smart dialing

The Nokia C3 is a social gadget for the young. What’s not to like if Facebook is your second home and you want to always stay in touch. Attractive design and the right feature set come at a price that many can afford. The Nokia C3 is so full of potential because it’s suited for both emerging and mature markets.
In the low end, you will sometimes come across rare gems of phones that will surprise you with their styling and features. The Nokia C3 isn’t one of them. The key word here is enough. The build, the connectivity, the interface – even the imaging – is good enough.

Nokia C3 live shots
A 2MP fixed-focus camera isn’t the kind to send your digicam into retirement – it’s good enough for photography you need to quickly share. The screen isn’t perfect for media or browsing, there’s no fast network data, you have a QWERTY keyboard but no document editing – you catch our drift.
There isn’t much to get excited about but – we’ll say it again – the right users will find more than enough to get excited about. The Nokia C3 is a phone that wants to be in every pocket – let’s see if it is the right choice for you.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 review #bb #blackberry #bold #bbm

BlackBerry Bold 9700 review.

 

 Some handsets will work their socks off to have their fifteen minutes of fame, others are simply born into stardom. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is certainly fortunate to carry a name that stands for popularity and excellence in the RIM family of phones. But this kind of fame can be less a blessing and more of a curse if the successor fails to live up to the standards set by its illustrious namesake.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 official photo
These high expectations have quite often turned otherwise decent handsets into a byword for failure. It's simply not enough to provide incremental improvements when upgrading an iconic handset. The iPhone somehow gets away with that, but Apple usually does. But for regular mobile phone manufacturers it takes something new and it certainly takes something better for the successor to achieve the same kind of success.

Key features:

• 2.44" 65K-color TFT landscape display with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels
• Comfortable four-row full QWERTY keyboard
• Quad-band GSM support and tri-band 3G with HSDPA
• Wi-Fi and built-in GPS and BlackBerry maps preloaded
• 3.15 autofocus megapixel camera, LED flash
• 624 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM
• BlackBerry OS v5
• Responsive trackpad navigation
• Hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• DivX and XviD video support
• Good web browser
• Office document editor
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Decent audio quality
• Smart dialing
• Great battery life
• More compact body and lighter weight compared to the Bold 9000
• Good build quality

Main disadvantages:

• Many features are locked without a BlackBerry Internet Service account (plan)
• Mediocre camera performance and features
• No FM radio
• No video-call camera
• No TV-out functionality
• No built-in accelerometer
• No built-in compass

It's pretty obvious where the RIM R&D team is heading with the BlackBerry Bold 9700. It's hard to really overhaul a handset that was considered almost perfect by most of its users without testing their loyalty, so they embarked on optimization instead. It's not a bad formula for success to just keep the same functionality, stick it in a smaller, fitter body and improve the performance wherever possible.

Will the BlackBerry Bold 9700 have the span and impact of its predecessor?
One glitch or an important feature sacrificed to fit the compact package and the plan goes down the tubes. The smartphone market is increasingly competitive and smaller companies like RIM know they have little room for error. The new Bold 9700 looks fit and hot, no doubt about that. Let's see if it performs to our expectations, and yours.

#ce and #snow hit #Christmas getaway in Western Europe

Ice and snow hit Christmas getaway in Western Europe

 

 

 Thick ice and snow have caused further travel disruption in Western Europe, as transport networks struggle to cope with the busy Christmas period.

In northern Germany, freezing rain created 2cm (almost one inch) of ice on some main roads, prompting officials to advise against driving.

There were further snowfalls in northern France and more were forecast.

Driving conditions in parts of Britain were said to be "treacherous" on one of the year's busiest days on the roads.

Delays and cancellations affected rail services in parts of Scotland, England and Wales.

Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport, was said to be operating a near normal schedule. Both runways reopened on Wednesday night for the first time since Saturday.

'Endless accidents'

In Duesseldorf in western Germany a schoolbus crashed into a tree after colliding with a car.

The driver was seriously hurt and 19 children and five other adults were lightly injured, local media reported.

Police in areas of Lower Saxony in the north said there had been an "endless" string of accidents, with roads described as similar to glass because of the fall of freezing rain on icy surfaces.

The motorway between Berlin and Hamburg was said to be at a standstill and heavy overnight snow in the Magdeburg area left a number of motorists stranded.

In France, the authorities placed 17 areas on the second highest state of alert, including the entire Paris region. Weather forecasters have warned of heavy snow.

 

Electric motoring: a quiet revolution

 

  

The government is eager to bolster demand for electric cars in order to support innovation and industrial development 

The many electric motoring announcements in London on Tuesday seemed to suggest the start of an electric car revolution in the UK.

Soon after a ceremony at Guildhall in the City, where the government revealed a list of nine electric cars eligible for a £5,000 subsidy, the focus moved on to electric taxis.

In his final air quality strategy, London Mayor Boris Johnson set out his plan to phase out old polluting black cabs in an effort to improve air quality.

This includes "a £1m fund to encourage taxi owners to upgrade to low emission vehicles such as electric taxi cabs", the Mayor said in a statement.

'Tremendous opportunity'

At a separate event in central London, the German carmaker Volkswagen unveiled an electric concept taxi that could go some way to fill the void once an estimated 1,200 of London's most polluting taxis fail to have their licences renewed.

Volkswagen's tiny taxi allows a driver to take two passengers plus luggage, and should have a range of about 300 kilometres (186 miles) on a full charge.

 

Demand for electric vehicles is partly driven by subsidies and legislation

 

"In the future, mobility in city centres will be restricted by low emission zones that you can't enter with private vehicles, so in such cities taxis are about mass mobilisation," Volkswagen's design director Klaus Bischoff predicts during in an interview with BBC News.

Volkswagen and others in the industry often see government initiatives as business opportunities, and electric motoring subsidies are no different.

"Low carbon and the transition to low carbon is a tremendous opportunity for the UK motor industry," says Paul Everitt, chief executive of motor industry body SMMT.

Not there yet

All this effort by government and companies suggests electric motoring is about to become mainstream.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

There's going to be hybridisation and electrification of vehicles in many different ways”

End Quote Stefan Suckow Hybrid sales director, Johnson Controls

But that is unlikely just yet, according to Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation.

"The £43m [government subsidy for electric vehicles] being made available until early 2012 means at least 8,600 will benefit from the subsidy," he says.

However, "while this makes ultra-green cars cheaper, it doesn't make them cheap", he adds.

Put this into context of the 28 million cars on the road in the UK and annual new car sales of around two million, and it seems clear that much more is needed.

"Clearly we are still a long way from an affordable mass market for these vehicles," says Mr Glaister.

Small improvements

But if, as many predict, the shift from cars with conventional combustion engines to electric cars is set to remain slow for years yet, there is another, less visible, electric motoring revolution taking place.

"There's going to be hybridisation and electrification of vehicles in many different ways," according to Stefan Suckow, hybrid sales director with Johnson Controls, which makes electric car batteries for several manufacturers.

At the most basic level, this relates to how carmakers are eliminating the direct mechanical connections between components and the engine.

For instance, fuel consumption can be cut by about 1% by switching from conventional power steering to electronically controlled power steering.

Other incremental improvements range from solar panels that run the air conditioning during stand-still, so fuel is not used to cool down the car, to small electric motors tucked away in the doors and powered by batteries that are charged when a car is braking.

These electric motors help with acceleration, which means cars can be fitted with smaller and thus cleaner engines.

 

#Russian supercar challenges #Ferrari and #Lamborghini car #racer

Russian supercar challenges Ferrari and Lamborghini

 

 Nikolai Fomenko, Marussia Motors CEO, explains some of the features of the car

Parked in an old Soviet-era factory in northern Moscow, the ultra-sleek supercars seem oddly out of place.

The cars' bright colours and shiny exteriors contrast sharply with the rusty water pipes and the paint peeling from the grey buildings surrounding them.

Modern cars are no longer rare in Moscow.
In the streets outside the old plant, the traffic is heavy with Western models that are vastly superior to the Ladas of the past.
But none of them are as striking as the sportscars hidden behind the factory gates.
Commercially viable? The cars are made by Marussia Motors, a small company that employs less than 300 people.

 

The showroom in central Moscow is buzzing with prospective buyers

 

It is run by Russian showman-turned-racing-driver-turned-entrepreneur, Nikolai Fomenko.
With a price tag of about £86,000, Marussia is the first luxury sportscar produced in Russia.
The company likes to think of Ferrari and Lamborghini as its rivals.
Beyond the shapely curves of the cars, Marussia Motors has also taken on a similar swagger to that of the Italian sportscar companies.
In early November, it acquired a controlling stake in the Virgin Racing Formula 1 team, a move it hopes will help promote its brand and drum up business for its two models, B1 and B2.
It is a bold move for sure, though industry observers, both in Russia and abroad, remain unconvinced Marussia Motors is commercially viable.
"We still don't have much information about the cost effectiveness, sales and production costs of the company," says Oleg Datskiv, head of the the Russian motoring website Autodealer.

Skype apologises for losing half of daily call traffic

 

 

 

Millions of people around the globe have been hit by an outage at the popular internet phone service Skype.

Users as far afield as Japan, Europe and the US have all reported problems.

The company which prides itself on providing relatively reliable service last suffered a major outage in 2007.

"We take outages like this really seriously and apologise for the inconvenience users are having," Tony Bates, Skype chief executive officer told BBC News.

Argentina former leader Jorge Videla jailed for life

 

 

 Former Argentine military ruler Jorge Videla has been sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity.

A court in the central Argentine city of Cordoba found Gen Videla, 85, guilty of murdering dissidents during the country's period of military rule between 1976 and 1983.

The general has been accused of being the main architect of what became known as Argentina's "Dirty War".