5 Hottest Qwerty phones

Nokia E72

The E72’s multimedia skills beat all the others here. It’s very stylishly built, flaunting an elongated profile and a robust metallic rear battery bonnet. The keyboard’s domed buttons (which include dedicated punctuation keys) are easy on the thumbs, feeling almost ceramic to the touch, although not as distinct as the BlackBerry’s.

The Symbian S60 interface is a bit dated but highly customisable. The push email set-up rivals the BlackBerry for ease of use, and while Nokia’s Ovi Store isn’t overflowing, it offers a decent choice of apps and games to download.

Verdict: With outstanding media and SMS talents, the E72 is the best all-round QWERTY phone.

Specs: OS: Symbian Series 60; Display: 2.4in, 320x240; Camera/video: 5MP/VGA@ 15fps: Storage: 250MB + microSD; Battery 6hrs talk, 576hrs standby.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro

The X10 Mini Pro is the smallest here and could be the dinkiest smartphone we’ve ever handled. A flick of a thumb is enough to slide the screen up with a satisfying snap to reveal the surprisingly roomy QWERTY.

In our tests it proved a fine platform for speedtyping, but those with larger digits than ours may find it more challenging. Beneath the responsive capacitive touchscreen is an Android-based interface that’s been tweaked to accommodate the small screen size. If you’ve previously been put off QWERTY handsets by their size, the Mini Pro could change all that.

Verdict: A lesson in smartphone miniaturisation that’s incredibly user-friendly.

Specs: OS: Android 1.6; Display: 2.6-in, 320x240 capacitive touchscreen; Camera/video: 5MP/VGA@ 30fps; Storage: 128MB + microSD; Battery: 3.5hrs talk, 360hrs standby.

Palm Pixi Plus

Thanks to Palm’s flexible webOS, the entry-level Pixi Plus is a multitasking demon. No rival QWERTY handset can switch between apps and features so effortlessly.

It’s very slim, light and well made, and while the keyboard looks cramped it’s great to use. The soft rubbery domes are very tactile, you get dedicated full stop and comma keys, and the phone’s slender profile means you can easily tap out messages one-handed. This frees your other hand to use the responsive capacitive touchscreen or the gesture pad.

Verdict: This multitasking smartphone has more appeal than its entry-level status suggests.

Specs: OS: webOS 1.4.1; Display: 2.63in, 320x400; Camera/video: 2MP/VGA@ 30fps; Storage: 8GB; Battery: 5.2hrs talk, 350hrs standby.

Acer Neo Touch P300

The Acer’s 3.2-inch widescreen display is a beauty. Unfortunately, this Windows Mobile-powered phone doesn’t follow through with performance to match. The sliding keyboard is spacious and geared for drafting long messages and emails.

Flush to the surface with an almost pressurepad action, each key is distinguishable by a smooth rubberised finish. The same can’t be said of the resistive touchscreen. It copes fine with aggressive taps on the main menu icons, but swipe and scroll and it becomes temperamental.

Go off-road from the main menu and you’ll be grabbing the stylus to negotiate the fiddly sub-menus. Also, the processor seems to have trouble if you throw it a quick volley of taps or swipes, needing time to catch up. Ultimately this lack of response overshadows the fairly impressive set of features.

Verdict: A great QWERTY is let down by a moody touchscreen and sluggish processor.

Specs: OS: Windows Mobile 6.5; Display: 3.2in, 240x400; Camera/video: 3.2MP/320x240@30fps; Storage256MB+microSD; Battery: 4.4hrs talk, 400hrs standby.

BlackBerry 9700 Bold

In terms of design and ergonomics, the BlackBerry’s keyboard is the finest on test. Inspired by the frets on a guitar, it has reasonable-sized keys that are ridged to help your thumbs keep their bearings.

It’s a pleasure to use and great for instinctive typing, even in the absence of standalone punctuation keys. Like the Nokia E72, the Bold is a traditional messenger, so there’s no touchscreen but there is a touchsensitive optical trackpad. Teamed with its splendid keyboard, for pure messaging the BlackBerry is hard to beat.

Verdict: Its thumb-friendly keyboard makes this BlackBerry a top-class messenger.

Specs: OS: BlackBerry 5.0; Display: 2.4in, 480x360; Camera/video: 3.2MP/480x352@30fps; Storage: 256MB + microSD; Battery: 6hrs talk, 408hrs standby.

Sony Ericsson launches 3 mobile phones

Sony Ericsson unveiled three new models of mobile phones, including entry level handset for 3G.

The company unveiled Xperia-X8 entertainment smartphone on Android platform, besides Cedar, the basic entry level model for 3G and Yendo,the full touch walkman phone. "We continue to offer an amalgamation of communication and entertainment by fusing together best quality touchscreen experience, in the second half of the year," Sony Ericsson India Marketing head Anurag Kunto told newsmen.

"The newly launched models shall be available at the stores from September," Kunto said.

According to Kunto, Android platform in mobile handsets has begun taking away market share worldwide.

Sporting a 3-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen (320 x 480), Xperia X8 comes with 3.2 megapixel camera, full Web browser, FM radio, support for video streaming, access to social networks through Timescape and music player with PlayNow and TrackID.

Xperia X8 runs on 600MHz processor and Google Android OS 1.6. For connectivity, the phone includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The phone packs 128MB of internal memory and a 2GB microSD card. The memory can be expandable upto 16GB.

In the walkman series, Sony Ericsson has launched its first full touchscreen phone called Yendo. Featuring four corner touch user interface (UI), Yendo comes with 2 megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom.

The phone's music features include FM radio, music player, walkman player, MP3/AAC tones and a Bluetooth A2DP stereo.
Sporting a 2.6-inch TFT screen with 320 X 420 pixel resolution, Yendo has 3.5mm jack, Bluetooth, micro USB connector, USB mass storage and modem.

The company has also launched an entry-level 3G phone called Cedar. The phone offers quick access to social networking sites through a feature called Widget Manager 2.0.

Featuring a 2.2-inch display, the phone packs a 2 megapixel camera and 3.5mm headphone jack. The phone's battery promises upto 4 hours of talktime on 3G network.

The company has close to 1,000 point of sales in western region including Maharashtra and Gujarat, and nearly 4,000 across the country.

Close to 100,000 million GSM handsets sales are projected for the Indian market in 2010, of which 70 per cent are priced below Rs 3,000, a company official said.

BlackBerry solution in India soon

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion may provide some solution next week to help Indian security agencies access corporate email by obtaining encrypted data in readable format, a government source said. 

Research In Motion (RIM) faces an August 31 deadline to give Indian authorities the means to track and read BlackBerry Enterprise email and its separate BlackBerry Messenger service. 

The government, concerned about the potential for militants to use the secure BlackBerry network to carry out attacks, has vowed to shut the services ifRIM fails to comply, cutting it out of one of the world's fastest-growing telecoms market. 

An RIM technical team in New Delhi has been working with the department of telecoms and security agencies to find a way out. 

"We are expecting they will come up with some solution for Enterprise mail next week," the source said. He did not want to be named as RIM's discussions with the government are not public. 

India said this week that it would allow the messenger service to continue beyond the deadline as it had been assured access to the services, but could shut down the secure email service if access is not given by then. 

India is one of a number of countries putting pressure on RIM, which has built the reputation of the BlackBerry, popular with business professionals and politicians, around confidentiality. 

Government officials have said RIM has assured manual access to BlackBerry instant messenger by September 1, and automated access by year-end.

Fujifilm launches 3D camera

Fujifilm has launched the world's first 3D camera and printing service. 

Photographs on the new FinePix camera can be printed on special 3D paper, ready to stick in the family photo album or be instantly viewed on the camera's built-in display. 

Unlike the 3D films in cinemas, special glasses do not need to be worn to show the 3D image. The camera takes two photos simultaneously from its two lenses which are fixed a similar distance apart to human eyes, reports the Telegraph. 

Using "lenticular" technology, the separate left and right eye images are interlaced on a furrowed surface to create the stereoscopic illusion. 

This method has been used since the 1940s typically on novelty items and stickers, featuring simple two-frame animations, such as a winking eye. The new camera also incorporates a high-definition 3D video camera, allowing users to watch their home movies back on any 3D TV. 

The new FinePix Real 3D W3 will go on sale in early September, costing around 400 pounds.Fujifilm said its 3D printing service would be available "shortly" after the camera's launch.

Asus launches dual touchpad notebook NX90

Notebook PC-maker, Asus has launched its new product NX90 notebook in the domestic market. 

The product is designed in co-operation with technology developer Bang and Olufsen's chief designer David Lewis, Asus' (India) Country Head for System Business, Alex Huang, said. 

"With the NX90 we hope to give notebooks the world over a new definition and place," Huang said. 

The product comes with features including 8GB DDRIII memory and 1TG (500GBx2) 7200rpm storage capacity. The 18.4-inch full high definition LED backlit display laptop is priced at Rs 1,31,999. 

"Initially, we would be marketing our product primarily in major metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata," Huang said, adding that the product would be marketed through its dealer network channel partners in India. 

The NX90 comes with a configuration of an Intel Core i7 processor, graphics card NVIDIA Geforce GT 335M, an amplifier and a built-in webcam of 2 megapixel. 

Among other features, the laptop has a dual touchpad located on both sides of the keyboard.

HTC launches Desire in India

Cellphone maker HTC Corporation in partnership with telecom service provider Tata Docomo launched a new handset 'HTC Desire' in India. 

HTC Desire is supported by android operating system that offers the enhanced HTC Sense experience to users. 

Sporting a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, the phone comes loaded with Android 2.1 OS. Desire also has an optical trackpad and physical buttons. The phone also supports multitouch gestures. 

Desire packs a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, flash, face detection capability, widescreen photo capture and Geotagging. The phone records videos at WVGA resolution (800*480) at 15 fps. 

The handset also supports music player and FM radio and has both audio and video recording. Powered by 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Desire has 512 MB of ROM and 576 MB of RAM. The phone comes with 4GB MicroSD card and the memory can be expanded upto 32GB.

The phone also has 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, standard micro-USB and Bluetooth 2.1. For connectivity, Desire supports 3G, GPRS, EDGE and Wi-Fi. 

The new HTC Desire will be available at a market price of Rs 28,900 at all authorised HTC resellers across the country. 

"This launch marks the strong relationship, Tata Docomo enjoys with HTC and, going forward, we will continue to work together to launch more innovative mobile offerings for Indian consumers on the Tata Docomo platform," Tata Docomo Head Marketing Gurinder Singh Sandhu said. 

HTC Desire comes with an exclusive offer for Tata Docomo users in India, wherein the company's postpay subscribers will get free data download of 500 MB per month for six months, the company added. 

Tata Teleservices has so far launched GSM services under the Tata Docomo brand name

Meet Desi e-reader, Wink

Bangalore-based digital publisher EC Media International has launched its multi-function e-book reader Wink that not only supports 15 languages but will also offer over 200,000 book titles on debut. 

Wink will offer consumers a one-stop e-store to access e-reading content of choice via www.thewinkstore.com that would enable access not just to e-books, but also journals, newspapers, magazines and selected articles, EC Media said. 

Many of the titles have been acquired from international aggregators, giving Indians access to a whole lot of books not available in the country. 

"With the launch of Wink, we aim to revolutionise the way people read," said Ravi DeeCee, founder and chief executive of DC Group, which has promoted EC Media and the Kerala-based publishing house DC Books. 

"Wink will allow readers to access their favourite content anytime, anywhere -- that, too, in the language of their choice," he said. 

Another offering will be Wink Wire for news, the first e-reader newspaper in India. EC Media has entered into a content alliance with IANS, India's largest independent news service, for Wink Wire. 

EC Media's e-reader itself is designed primarily for reading digital books and periodicals but users can also listen to music, check e-mails or even play games, executives said. 

This e-reader uses e-ink technology to display content to readers, and the main advantages of these features are portability, strain-free reading even in bright sunlight and substantial battery life. 

"With the launch of Wink, we want to enable the growth of content provisioning through electronic medium by leveraging existing eco-system of global tie-ups with publishers and aggregators," said Pradeep Palazhi, chief operating officer of EC Media. "We hope to succeed in attaining this vision." 

The group also aims to help publishers and authors leverage the new platform, simplifying the process of publishing -- from the draft of a book to its final printing, besides also helping them to reach out to a larger audience. 

Wink has enrolled top publishers like Penguin, Roli, Oxford University, Harper Collins and Permanent Black for content so far. It will provide access to over 100,000 tiles to begin with, along with some newspapers and magazines. 

The group has also announced a tie-up with Croma, the electronics megastore promoted by the Tata Group, as its retail partner. It has also roped in Redington as its distribution partner. 

"From a consumer perspective, it's going to be a resourceful investment. It will certainly enhance their reading experience with a variety of offerings," said Ajit Joshi, chief executive of Croma Electronics Megastore. 

Explaining how the e-reader works, officials said a user can access the online store from the web or through the catalogue present on the gadget, intuitively designed for easy preview of content, downloads and a secure payment gateway. 

The Wink store will have a strong base of regional language content on top of a wide-variety of international titles and category of e-books. Members will be able to avail of special deals and discounts on the store, they added. 

Gurcharan Das, author of "The Difficulty of Being Good: The Subtle Art of Dharma", is upbeat about e-readers. 

"E-readers like Wink are well positioned to capture the imagination of the younger generation," Das said at a function at the Crossword book store at Kemps Corner here. 

"I feel book stores are going to be history soon because the younger generation wants everything on screen. E-books are going to get cheaper than an actual book over time, so there is no point being stuck in nostalgia," Das, who is among the nominees of the Vodafone Crossword award, said.

BlackBerry messenger to continue, email may shut

India will allow BlackBerry's messenger service to continue beyond an August 31 deadline, but could shut down its secure email service if access is not given to its encrypted data by then, a senior government source said. 

A technical team from Research In Motion began discussions with India's telecommunications ministry and intelligence agencies, the source said, seeking to address security worries over some of BlackBerry's services. 

"Discussions have started. They will continue this week and whole of next week. Discussions are on both the services," said the source on condition of anonymity. 

The government expects some sort of technical solution from RIM to emerge during the discussions, he said. When asked if BlackBerry would be allowed to operate after August 31, he said, "BlackBerry services, including phone, SMS and Messenger will run, not sure about enterprise mail." 

Research In Motion has assured India of manual access to BlackBerry instant messages by September 1, and automated access by year-end. They are yet to get assurances for its more secure corporate email, sources said. 

Also on Tuesday, at least three mobile operators confirmed they received letters from the Department of Telecommunications giving them a deadline to put in place monitoring capability for BlackBerry Messenger and secured Enterprise email services. 

"We have received a letter ... asking us to ensure that legal intervention capability is put in place for BlackBerry services by 31 August 2010," a statement from operator Tata Teleservices said. 

New Delhi says it will shut down BlackBerry services if RIM does not allow access to its messaging or secured email, threatening its future in the world's fastest-growing telecoms market. 

Suitable interception 
India is one of a number of countries putting pressure on RIM, which has built the reputation of the BlackBerry, popular with business professionals and politicians, around confidentiality. 

Governments such as Saudi Arabia's fear it could become a tool for militants to plan attacks or for those breaking Islamic laws. A shutdown would affect about 1 million users in India out of a total 41 million BlackBerry users worldwide, allowing them to use the devices only for calls and Internet browsing. 

"The onus is on service providers to ensure that they have some sort of interception mechanism in place before the deadline ends," a senior Interior security official said. 

"It is binding upon them and the DoT (Department of Telecommunications), which is the nodal agency, will ensure that it is followed strictly, in the interest of national security." 

A source at one of India's biggest telecom operators said the government wanted a "suitable interception and monitoring" solution in readable format for the law enforcement agencies. According to a government source, RIM has already assured India of limited access to BlackBerry instant messages by September 1. 

RIM has lost more than 11 per cent of market capitalisation since the beginning of August, when governments in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they would also consider a ban.

Skin to turn anything touchscreen

Touchscreens seems to be going ubiquitous! The interactive hardware company Displax has started marketing Skin, a paper-thin, flexible film that can transform any non-metal surface into an interactive touchscreen! 

The film, unveiled in February this year, can be placed on any surface, transparent or opaque, flat or curved, to display any interactive content. Completely transparent, Skin uses projected capacitive technology, making it possible to apply on the back of a glass and detect finger touch on the front of the glass. 

When the film is applied to glass, plastic or wood, the surface becomes interactive. Significantly, this new multitouch technology solution can be integrated with standard LCD screens as well, making it an attractive choice for LCD manufacturers. It will also be available for audiovisual integrators or gaming platforms to develop innovative products. 

Extending the capabilities of the interactive format, Skin can be applied to flat or curved, opaque as well as transparent surfaces up to three metres across the diagonal while the controller creates a hyper sensitive technology solution. It allows users to interact with an enabled surface not just by touching it but, for the first time, by blowing on it, opening up new possibilities for future applications. Currently, the technology can detect up to 16 fingers on a 50-inch screen. The number of fingers detected is expected to increase as development progresses. 

The technology was primarily developed for commercial environments. Potential customers will come from industries as diverse as telecoms, retail, property, broadcast, pharma or finance. However, Displax expects consumer applications to be developed using the new technology, as well

HD war: Tata Sky vs Sun vs Airtel vs Dish

A long time in the offing, high-definition broadcast has finally invited itself upon India. Suddenly, we have not one but four bright options to choose from! 

Tata Sky HD 
Prompt and efficient with service and installation, Tata Sky makes up for its lack of content by putting a smile on your face. Channels currently on air include Discovery HD World, Nat Geo HD and stray movies on their own Showcase HD platform. 

Star Plus HD and Star Movies HD are next in line to be upscaled to 1080i. Best value for money offering right now. 

Price: Rs 2599 

Verdict: Best for - service and VFM 

Sun HD 
Early birds get the worm, as they say. In this case, the worm is becoming more of a health hazard for Sun TV. The most expensive package here it offers two more regional HD channels and Colors HD (upscaled) over the standard fare Nat Geo HD and Discovery HD World. Still, it doesn’t help its performance-per rupee rating. Only if you speak Tamil... 

Price: Rs 9990 

Verdict: Best for choice of channels 

Airtel HD 
The weakest of the current crop offers only Nat Geo HD and select events on ESPN HD as channels that will give you an eye-opening experience. They promise to add new channels “very soon” so we shall preserve our drool for another time. But with Dolby Digital Plus as their preferred 5.1 codec, we can only wait for better things from Airtel. 

Price: Rs 2940 

Verdict: Best for curbing HD channel surfing 

Dish TruHD
Not the most responsive when it comes to service, Dish TV earns brownie points with ample package options. It offers channels like Discovery HD World, Nat Geo HD, Zee TV HD and Zee Cinema HD. 
Cricket a’la carte is served up by Ten Sports. As an added bonus, they will also buy back your old standard-def box if you’re an existing subscriber. 

Price: Rs 2990 

Verdict: Best for HD channel surfing

Girlfriend-only phones beat Nokia

Micromax Informatics Ltd co-founderVikas Jain drew inspiration for the company’s first phone from a line of Indian villagers standing in the midday heat to get their cell phones charged by a man with a car battery mounted on a bicycle. Their homes had no electricity. 

In response, the company designed its first model, the X1i, with an oversized battery, a small screen, and tweaked electronics that made the phone run for as long as five days, and on standby for as many as 30 days. 

“It was really the most obvious thing to do,” says Jain, who co-founded the company in 1991 with three friends. “Here was something that provided customers a feature nobody else had bothered to give them -- battery life.” 

Micromax now sells about 1 million handsets a month, with 37 models tailored to local tastes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports in its August 16 issue. The company has about 4 per cent of the $6.3 billion Indian market, eating into the sales of Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, whose share in India fell to 52 per cent by the end of last year from 64 per cent in 2008. 

Micromax’s phones start at $40 and few of them sport Wi-Fi, 3G, or GPS capabilities. That keeps costs down in a country with sporadic Internet access and little 3G coverage. One phone doubles as a Nintendo Co Wii-like controller, allowing users to play video games. Another, marketed heavily with Bollywood- themed TV commercials, has costume jewelry embedded in it and swivels open to reveal a full keyboard. 

Product focus 
Closely-held Micromax’s approach has attracted interest from Boston-based TA Associates Inc, a $16 billion private equity fund that invested $45 million in the company in January for an undisclosed stake. 

“We did spend a lot of time with the broader universe of Indian phone makers,” says Naveen Wadhera, a TA Associates Advisory director based in Mumbai who worked on the deal. “But what we specifically wanted was someone with a real focus on product and a real effort at innovating. The others have a bit of a ‘me-too’ sort of strategy.” 

Micromax has led the assault on Nokia by Indian phone makers, which as a group have grabbed 14 per cent of the market, according to research by Indian trade magazine Voice&Data. Nokia isn’t giving up on the market. 

Carl Zeiss, anthropologists 
At its Gurgaon offices, near New Delhi, Nokia is hosting a group of Indian tech bloggers who were writing about its latest touchscreen model with a Carl Zeiss lens. 

Elsewhere in the country, anthropologists working for Nokia track the results of an experiment where the company gave every person in four neighboring villages a free phone with access to local weather, crop, and other information. 

Each Nokia phone spends nearly 18 months in development, says Nokia India Vice-President and Managing Director D. Shivakumar, with models tested for water exposure, bent by robots, and shaken around in boxes full of sharp objects. 

“Nokia’s one of those companies that nobody pays attention to when it does well,” he says. “It’s like when Roger Federer wins at Wimbledon, nobody talks about it. But lose once...” 

Nokia’s stock has dropped 24 per cent in the last twelve months, as margins suffered from its failure to bring out a high-end smartphone to take on Apple Inc’s iPhone. Sales of high-end handsets have lagged behind worldwide, and the company cut forecasts twice in three months over delays in finishing the software for the N8, a flagship new model.