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Online Bingo Player Wins New Car at 888Ladies

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:59:27 +0000

Online Bingo Player Wins New Car at 888Ladies
An online bingo player has won a car at 888Ladies only weeks after being retrenched. Read the full story at http://www.classicasinos.com/news/BingoNews/ns_02032009_172.html

Trick or Treats at Sun Bingo
Its not very often that a bingo site gives you something for nothing especially if you are an existing player but this is exactly what Sun Bingo is doing right now. If you are an existing Sun william hill casino player simply play 2 or more on bingo or 10 or more

British Nationals Arrested In Bingo Bust
Six Britons were arrested in Turkey for playing a charity game of bingo at Mobile Casino. Read the full story at

Motorola ES400 Enterprise Digital Assistant

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:45:16 +0000

Motorola ES400 Enterprise Digital Assistant
Designed for demanding enterprise customers, the Motorola ES400 is a ruggedised Windows smartphone with a VGA resolution screen and a QWERTY keyboard.

Android 3.0: what you need to know
Even though most Android users are still waiting for Android 2.2, details about the next version Android 3.0, or Gingerbread are starting to emerge.Android 3.0 release date is looking like Q4 of this year, possibly around October. And Gingerbread may already be in some testers’ hands – Phandroid has shown an unverified photo of a test build of Android 3.0 running in the wild.As we reported earlier this month, a Russian podcast details how Android 3.0 will be restricted to high-end handsets (and tablets). The podcast explained that Android 3.0 phones will require at least a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 3.5-inch or larger displays.Confirmed Android 3.0 features include improved copy and paste and support for WebM video playback. The WebM Project confirmed that “WebM support in Android is expected in the Gingerbread release”. WebM files are compressed with the VP8 video codec, which Google purchased and open-sourced earlier this year.It’s also rumoured that Android 3.0 will feature a new user interface. TechCrunch reported that “Google is focusing the bulk of its efforts on the user experience for the upcoming Gingerbread release.”This, Google apparently hopes, will deter handset manufacturers from adding in their own Android 3.0 customizations (such as HTC’s Sense).One of the first Android 3.0 handsets could be the Samsung Galaxy S2 if another rumour is to be believed. The leaked details of the Galaxy S I9200 claim a 4.3-inch screen with a resolution of 1280×720.We’ll bring you more Android 3.0 details as they emerge.In the meantime, check out Android 3.0: 10 things Google should change.

Regional mobile broadband to be created by EU following huge interest in the service
Due to the huge popularity and growing demand for high-speed internet access The GSM Directive recently approved access to new spectrum for advanced data, which can be used for accessing the internet on mobile phones at broadband speeds, and will soon be released following a major breakthrough by the European Union. A number of European [...]We love mobile phonesRegional mobile broadband to be created by EU following huge interest in the service

7 Spins Casino $7 No Deposit Casino Offer

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:00:34 +0000

7 Spins Casino $7 No Deposit Casino Offer
The 7 Spins Casino does accept USA based players and does offer matching bonuses if you run short after you get your $7 in free money. The $7 will get you into the casino’s real money section, but you’ll have to play carefully to get a full experience with their games. 7 Spins is really hoping [...]

Verizon Wireless And Pantech Introduce The Pantech Jest

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:00:09 +0000

Verizon Wireless And Pantech Introduce The Pantech Jest
Sizzle up your summer with the latest slider phone from Verizon Wireless and Pantech. Today, the companies announced the Pantech Jest, comes with social networking, 2 megapixel camera, 2.6-inch display and simple UI. The Jest is available online today for free through a special online promotion. It will be in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores beginning July [...]

WLM for iPhone passes one million downloads
Windows Live Messenger app for iPhone has been downloaded over one million times in just 5 days. In addition to this, according to Windows Team blog, there are over 24 million people who connect with Messenger friends from other mobile phones through a client application, their phones browser, or SMS. Following its availability in the [...]

Sony Ericsson Xperia X8, budget phone for Android
Following its Cedar and Yendo unit, Sony Ericsson offers another Xperia lineup called X8. Targetting mid-to-low segments with less than EUR200 (US$247), the device’s size is between X10 mini and X10. It has 3 inch TFT HVGA (320 x 480 pixels) capacitive touchscreen (single touch), 128MB internal storage with additional storage via microSD card, a [...]

Casino Slot Machines Going 3D In Southern California

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Casino Slot Machines Going 3D In Southern California
The casino business in Southern California has become so saturated that casinos are looking for new ways to attract customers. One casino is moving towards 3D slot machines.

eBay Slot Machine A Big Hit For ITG At US Casinos
International Game Technology seems to have hit the jackpot with their eBay slot machine. The game is becoming popular at many casinos around the US.

Betfair Arcade introduces six new games

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:14:59 +0000

Betfair Arcade introduces six new games
Betfair Arcade members have a wider range of gaming options to look forward to following the launch this week of six new exclusive casino games. The result of two years of development by Openbet, the new releases include European Blackjack, Vegas Blackjack, European Roulette, Money Wheel, Pontoon and Baccarat. Players will be able to immerse themselves [...]

New Jersey politicians call for summit on internet gambling
Attempts to legalise intrastate online gambling in the state of New Jersey entered a new phase this week as Democratic Party lawmakers called for a gaming summit to reconcile competing proposals to put sports and Internet betting to a public vote in a referendum this fall. Last week land casino operators in the state were unequivocal [...]

Motorola Milestone XT720

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:15:00 +0000

Motorola Milestone XT720
The Motorola Milestone XT720 takes the existing Milestone smartphone and adds a better camera and a number of other useful features at the expense of the keyboard.

Using A List To Get A No Deposit Bonus

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:01:25 +0000

One of the best ways to cut to the chase and find the best no deposit bonus when you are online gambling is to use a list. You can find a list online that will give you the lowdown on all of the casinos that offer this type of bonus. Not all online casinos offer a no deposit bonus for players, so using a list can help you save quite a bit of time when you are looking for a casino that will basically give you free money with which to gamble when you go online.

Instead of going from online casino to online casino to look for a no deposit bonus, you can save yourself quite a bit of time if you just take a look at a list that features the casinos that will offer you this incentive to play. The no deposit bonus is just that – you do not have to deposit into your account in order to get money to wager with when you play at the casino online. Many new players like the idea of using the no deposit bonus as it can get them used to online casino action without them having to risk their own money in doing so.

When you use the no deposit list in order to gain access to the casinos that offer this type of bonus, you want to make sure that the no deposit bonus will let you play the games that you are going on the casino site to play. For example, while some of the sites will allow you to use the no deposit bonus for any game that the casino offers to players, including poker, others will restrict the bonus for certain games. One of the best aspects when it comes to reading the list is that you can take a look at each of the no deposit bonus offers and pick out which one works best for you. If you like poker, you are going to want to be sure that you can use the no deposit bonus towards wagering at poker games.

You can also find out a great deal about the no deposit bonuses that are out there by taking a look at the no deposit list options. You can discover the rules that apply to the bonuses with regard to how you can collect your winnings as well as learn how often you have to play before you can collect your winnings. If you plan to play for money later on, you can make sure that you can open an account with the casino and do just that, after you have taken advantage of the no deposit bonus. The list can also give you the rules as to whether or not you have to open up an account in order to receive the bonus, although with the no deposit bonus, you do not have to put money into your account in order to play. You are better off to get the information about the bonuses that are out there all in one place rather than hunting all over the internet for them.

In Depth: The 5-minute guide to the MeeGo mobile OS

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:15:13 +0000

In Depth: The 5-minute guide to the MeeGo mobile OS
In the history of stupid names for Linux software, MeeGo tops them all. But what is it exactly? That’s not a very nice thing to say! But yes, MeeGo is an unusual name. OK, it’s stupid. It’s a new project that brings together Moblin, a name that you wouldn’t call great, but neither was it embarrassing, and Maemo, a name that kept making people disagree over whether it was pronounced Maymo, Maimo or Meemo. Cunningly, MeeGo tops them both in the silly name stakes. Maybe it’s an attempt at a catchy, web 2.0-inspired brand name Well no, it isn’t. The name itself is quite old in fact. The Linux Foundation registered the meego.com domain over a decade ago. We’ve no idea what the thinking was behind doing this, but it’s been sitting on the trademark for some time now. Enough about the name. What’s this all about? Is there any substance to it? MeeGo brings together all the awesome work that Intel has done with Moblin, and the work that Nokia did with Maemo. So before we even start thinking about what new things MeeGo brings to the table, there’s already a wealth of software, tools, engineers and documentation from the existing projects. What exactly does Moblin bring to this new project, then? Whether you realise it or not, Intel is the company that kickstarted the netbook revolution. All the work that was put in to produce super-cheap devices for the One Laptop Per Child project meant that we had a glut of hardware that could be put together into a cheap laptop and that became the first netbook. Intel then followed this up with its Atom CPU, which lowered the cost and raised the energy efficiency even further. So Intel’s main contribution is on the hardware side of things, then? Well, Intel is a hardware company, to be fair. But Moblin does have a lot of software. You see, something that Apple figured out years ago is that if you want to make people love your hardware, you have to make them love your software too. So Intel put in a huge amount of work to customise and optimise Linux for its hardware. The result is that its customised Moblin distro boots fast, doesn’t require much hard disk space and has a custom user interface, designed to make maximum use of small screens. Much of that user interface was made with a toolkit called Clutter, which is a GTK-based system that enables fast drawing and cool animations. If you ever used the neat little interface in Ubuntu Netbook Remix, for example, that was Clutter. All Intel’s work will be brought into MeeGo. That sounds great. So what does Maemo bring to the MeeGo party? Maemo hasn’t had quite the same success as Moblin, for a few reasons. Firstly, for a long time it was only available on Nokia’s high-end line of ‘internet communicators’ that’s the Nokia 770, the N800, the N810 and, most recently, the N900. These are great devices, but they’re aimed at a niche market, so there aren’t many of them out there compared to the number of netbooks. What’s more, for years Maemo was based on GTK with Nokia’s own modifications. But a couple of years ago, when Nokia acquired Qt maker Trolltech, it became inevitable that Maemo would switch over to Qt at some point. So Maemo uses Qt? Er no. Despite Nokia’s acquiring it in 2008, support for Qt only started to appear in Maemo last year. And having support for Qt doesn’t mean the actual system uses it that’s all still written in GTK. As a result, Maemo has GTK and Qt, which isn’t the slim and light approach that seems best for small devices. If Maemo has GTK and Qt, and Moblin only has GTK, then won’t they just standardise on GTK? You might very well think that, but we couldn’t possibly comment Oh, go on Sadly, instead of standardising on what both distros already have, MeeGo will use Qt for its user interface system. Does that mean Clutter is dead? Like we said, all of Intel’s work will be brought into MeeGo, and that includes GTK and Clutter. However, the MeeGo project has made it clear that these two are only included for application compatibility so that existing apps will work and that the primary toolkit is Qt. Given that Qt had yet to become the primary toolkit even on Maemo, this doesn’t seem like a smart move. But Nokia owns Qt, so presumably it’s somewhat obliged to use it. Surely it’s fantastic to have a big firm such as Nokia switch to Linux? It’s always great to have anyone join in our effort, but don’t expect to see Nokia roll out MeeGo across all its hardware overnight. Nokia has a huge market share in the lower-end devices phones with smaller screens, less computing power and lower costs. So, while having a full-fat Linux distro is a great idea for phones with the latest and greatest hardware, it’s not so nice on the kinds of phones that are given away free with a small contract. I have a phone like that, and I like it after all, it’s a phone, not a web browser or an email client or an MP3 player, or any other stuff I don’t want Right, and in those scenarios, something like Symbian the modern descendent of Palm’s EPOC operating system, and also owned by Nokia is probably better. It’s open source, and runs on nearly half the smartphones in the world. What’s more, Qt already runs on Symbian devices, which means that with a little bit of effort, MeeGo and Symbian apps are basically compatible. Does this mean that over time, as phones get more powerful, we’ll see more Nokia MeeGo devices appearing in the low-end phone marketplace? That seems likely, but on the flip side, it’s definitely in Nokia’s interest to continue the optimisation momentum inherited from Moblin so that MeeGo can work on smaller and smaller devices in the future.If apps can run on everything from Symbian devices with tiny screens, all the way up to netbooks, how can developers know what to design for? This is certainly one of the concerns. All models of Apple’s iPhone, for example, have a 320×480 screen, which means that all apps look and work the same. With MeeGo, you don’t know what screen resolution you’ll have or how much RAM there’ll be you don’t even know what CPU it’ll be running on. That’s an interesting point, but isn’t the difference between a 1.6GHz CPU and a 1.8GHz CPU pretty trivial? That’s true, but MeeGo is also designed to work cross-architecture. This means that it’ll work on Intel CPUs as well as ARM, which satisfies both Intel and Nokia. Does that mean that Intel is making software to work on non-Intel CPUs? Yes it does. We suspect that it probably isn’t too happy about doing this, but in the name of co-operation, anything’s possible. So Nokia gets to use its user interface toolkit, Intel can use its packaging system, and both companies get CPUs that they’re happy with. To be honest, it does feel a bit as though boardroom politics may have influenced some of the technical decisions here. Hold on, what was that about a packaging system? Don’t forget that it’s all Linux behind the scenes, and that means a package manager is used to install software. For Moblin, that was RPM, for Maemo it was APT. They chose one, and it was Intel’s, so MeeGo uses RPM. Oh no! We’re not big fans of RPM either, so this seems a strange choice. Still, for the most part, it’ll be hidden from the user behind some sort of app store faade. Ah, brilliant, so users will be able to get their apps from one central location? You might well think that there would be a store a bit like Apple’s, but Oh, you’re kidding. You mean there won’t be a standard app store? Sadly, no. Instead of there being one central place where users can get their apps from, Intel will have its app store, called AppUp, which is currently in beta testing. Nokia, in turn, will continue to use its own existing Ovi store. This all seems like a bit of a mess. Isn’t Android going to mop up in the market?It does have a stronger brand, but the Android world seems to be even more fragmented than MeeGo there are lots of different devices about, all with different hardware, and all with different software too. Plus, Android support was recently removed from the Linux kernel because no one showed much interest in maintaining it. Surely, out of all this mess, some sort of competition will emerge? Free software does seem to work at its best by having a chaotic gloop of primordial SourceForge projects that somehow end up being viable and very popular. We’re not sure yet whether we’ll end up using MeeGo or Android, but, happily, they’re both contributing back to the same community. And don’t call me Shirley. And where does all this leave Ubuntu Netbook Remix? We think Ubuntu is likely to do what it has always done best: sit back, wait for other people to do the work, then take it all, respin it into something awesome and stick a brown colour scheme on top. It’s worked in the past, so we think it’ll work here too Ubuntu Netbook Remix could well prove to be more popular than both MeeGo and Android. Where can I find out some more information about MeeGo? Somewhat predictably, the information’s currently scattered across the Moblin and Maemo sites, with http://meego.com being a bit bare right now. So head over to www.moblin.org and www.maemo.org to get started. All being well, we should see the first software being released in a couple of months’ time, and the first devices appearing by the end of the year.Related StoriesBig smartphone growth for Nokia

LG Ally Phone (Verizon)
Released for Verizon, the LG Ally is an ergonomic Android-powered smartphone with a tempered-glass touch screen display, slide-out keyboard, 3.2-megapixel camera, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Running Google’s software, the handset has five customizable home screens.

Review: Nokia 7230

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:15:06 +0000

Review: Nokia 7230
Not everyone needs a phone with a million apps and a 20MP camera. Sometimes you just want to make calls, text and browse the internet for basic information, with a little style thrown in. Something like the Nokia 7230 slider phone for example.At only 10 x 5.5cm when folded, you’re easily able to slip the Nokia 7230 into your suit or trouser pocket with ease. But it still packs plenty of everyday essentials, including a featured 3.2MP camera, 3G connectivity, a media player with radio and a 2.2-inch screen for viewing everything from messaging and checking your email through to web browsing and fast access to Facebook and MySpace. And there are apps too via Ovi if you want them, with a few demo games and utilities to get you going. All of that in a phone that’s mostly free on contract or at 129 should you opt for pay-as-you-go, which isn’t bad as a stylish-looking 3G phone.Nokia 7230: DesignSmall, functional and with smooth curves the 7230 is classic Nokia design. Sized at 98(h) x 48(w) x 14.75(d) mm and weighing in at 100g, the phone is small and light enough to fit into anyone’s bag or pocket, with curved, chromed edges that contribute to an ergonomic shape for your hand.Within the fairly minimalist design is a mini-USB slot (although the cable for hooking up the phone to a USB slot doesn’t come as standard), a headphone point and those front facing controls for accessing/ending calls, along with an additional three menu-based controls for getting round the 2.2-inch TFT screen. Memory card slot? That’s located inside the handset, with a 2GB microSD down to come as standard.. The rear of the phone is devoted to photography, with a dedicated camera key on the side (or on top if you’re taking pictures in landscape) turning your phone into a reasonable outdoor snapper in seconds.The sliding mechanism is a dream, a ‘glide’ rather than a ‘clunk’, exposing a keyboard that’s spacious enough for error-free typing and sufficiently responsive when you hit the keys. When you close the slide, the phone automatically locks, kicking off that lock when you flick it back open. Running on the Symbian Series 40 platform, the Nokia 7230 has a functional, if unspectacular interface, offering up three ways of accessing the phone’s main functions. With a click of that central menu button, you’ll see icons for all of the basic functions or alternatively, the left-hand selection key brings up the highlights on a scrolling list. The right-hand key offers quick access to your contacts.Finally, opting for the Home Screen mode brings up mini icons for media and networking to scroll through. Which one is best? To be honest, we found ourselves using all three randomly, with none of the menus offering quite what we wanted on first use. But don’t despair, you can change the shortcuts to your own preferences with a bit of time and effort through the menu settings, so if web access on the go is a big thing for you, just stick a quick icon to it on the home screen instead of Facebook.But even allowing for that, the interface does seem a little messy purely by trying to cover too many bases. Granted there isn’t a touchscreen interface to play with, but one well thought-out way of accessing all functions (like on the lower budget Samsung Genio Slide) would certainly be better than the three different solutions currently on offer.When you first log in, you’ll also be offered the option to sign up to Ovi for phone-based email. It’s something Nokia is rightly proud of, but we found the experience slow and not without error messages. We got there in the end, but with the thought that the Nokia 7230 might be used by first-time phone and email users, it is something that needs tightening up.Nokia 7230: Calls and contactsNokia has been making mobile devices for as long as most of us have been alive, so as you would expect, the calling side of the 7230 runs as smoothly as a high-end sports car. Voice calls are clear, with no obvious drops in the network as we were using it.Accessing calls is also a doddle (just a slide and touch of a button), the ringtones, which are both available as presets and MP3, are loud enough to wake the heaviest of sleepers and the keypad is large enough to accommodate the biggest of fingers when fumbling to answer.Setting up contacts is just a matter of entering details in a few fields, although you can augment your entries with personalised images and sounds, as well as web and email details. Accessing is just as easy, simply press the right hand soft key and you’re flung into the contacts list. There’s a big, bold font for typing out and reading those texts and an equally large message when a call is incoming. No video calling, but we suspect you’ve already guessed that one on a handset for this price. Once upon a time, mobile phones were all about calling and texting. These days, some sort of email access is pretty much an added necessity for communication and you’ll certainly find enough options for email here. Whether it’s sufficient for your needs is another matter.As we mentioned earlier, the SMS functionality is simple, straightforward and pretty much faultless. With the added option of multimedia (MMS) messaging, bold message notifications and an easy-to-use keyboard, firing out and receiving random thoughts and images was a breeze. If texting or sharing your latest photos is your thing, you’ll find much to love here. Email, on the other hand, is something that just might frustrate. As we alluded to earlier, signing up for Ovi wasn’t without its problems, despite a fairly solid network reception at the time. But once there, we were able to send an email from that account without any further problems. If Ovi isn’t for you, there’s also the option of logging into Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or just about any other email service. But slowly. Very slowly.The logging in process to all the services was time-consuming and once in, the wait to get anything but the mail headers was so slow, you wondered if it would be quicker to have sent or received a letter via Royal Mail. Over a 3G connection, there’s really no reason why email messages shouldn’t load from a webmail service in a matter of seconds, no matter how much the phone costs.If that’s a disappointment, the added bonus here should be instant messaging via Ovi. Don’t worry if you haven’t got any Ovi mates, the service also allows access to friends on the likes of Windows and Yahoo Messenger, along with Google Talk. If you’ve already signed up for the Ovi account earlier, just login with those details and you should get taken to the chat interface. Sadly for us, all our attempts to ’set up chat’ after successfully logging in were greeted with a blank screen. Does this mean there’s some sort of incompatibility somewhere? We don’t know. We’ve just marked it down as a big, fat fail.Not one, but two email browsers are offered with the Nokia 7230, the Opera Mini browser and a separate on-board browser from Nokia.Opera is always a solid web solution and that’s certainly the case here. A good zoom function works well with the relatively small screen, pages of our favourites sites render in a decent web-like manner and sites that give thought to mobile access (TechRadar and the BBC for example) come out particularly well. Indeed, connectivity was brisk for most of the sites we loaded, even when the connection dropped from full 3G. Obviously you can bookmark your favourite feeds and sites, making the browser here a definite plus.But if Opera isn’t your bag, there’s always the Nokia browser. It renders just as well, but nowhere near as fast and with far less options than Opera. It also renders in ‘full size’, so you’ll need to do a bit of scrolling around the page too to find what you want. But essentially it’s horses for courses. Try them both out, you’ll certainly prefer one just stick to that one in future.Alternatively, if your web use is pretty much confined to using Facebook and MySpace, just load up the on-board apps for both services. Yes, you can access the full selection of apps at the Ovi Store, which is just a click of an icon away, but Nokia knows its audience and offers the two social networks apps as standard. No Twitter? Sadly not, but two out of three isn’t bad – although we’re not sure if anyone really uses MySpace any more.The Facebook app in particular is fairly strong, offering pretty much everything you get on the web-based service messages, photos, networking, friend-finding it’s all here on the go, possibly even beating the inbuilt options on phones like the HTC Legend. Likewise, MySpace offers up all the information and editing options, even if the layout of a little more functional.To use a footballing analogy, the 3.2MP camera on the Nokia 7230 is very much a ‘game of two halves’.In general terms, the camera is incredibly simple to use, just hit the camera icon and you’ll be able to capture stills in landscape or portrait format, with extras like a self-timer, white balance and effects (greyscale, sepia, solarise etc) giving your average low-end compact a run for its money. Indeed, we were quite impressed with the detail of the snaps we took out and about compared to what we expected.OUT AND ABOUT: A country walk captured with a good amount of detailREDUCED LIGHT: Even in the woods, the amount of detail captured by the Nokia 7230 is impressiveBut there’s no flash on the Nokia 7230, making the camera here a reliable outdoor friend on a bright day, but less than able in a pub, club or simply around the house. INDOOR PHOTO: A typical bright spring day outside, but the 7230 struggles to offer any kind of clarity on a room shotINDOOR DETAIL: Quality improves indoors for detail rather than a wide shot, but still struggles for clarityEFFECTS: A similar photo is much improved with the addition of the sepia effect for a follow-up shotVideo is a bonus, but don’t expect to be the next Spielberg with it. Quality is shaky and colours a little off, nice for a quirky little clip of the dog in the garden, not great for recording a special birthday.(Video: video0001.3gp)IN THE PARK: Bright outside, but that’s not easy to see with this grainy video footage(Video: video0000.3gp)IN THE WOODS: A lack of light makes the detailing of the video clip even harder to viewOn the plus side, Nokia makes it nice and easy to share your moments. The previously-mentioned picture messaging is your obvious way of doing this, but you can also directly upload to Flickr (via the built-in app) or go for Nokia’s own Share on Ovi, again pre-loaded onto the handset and all easy to use once you’ve signed up. There’s also a fourth option with Bluetooth built-in, you can fire over to another device wirelessly. All a bonus, but you do wish there was some kind of flash too, because the camera could and should be a real selling point.If we use the humble iPod as a benchmark for portable audio, it’s safe to say that the media player on-board the Nokia 7230 isn’t anywhere near that level.Getting your music on the handset is a case of drag and drop (or transfer via Bluetooth). Note that a cable for connecting to your PC doesn’t come as standard, which is slightly frustrating. Once music is on the phone comes another disappointment, the sound quality. Playback via either the external speakers or the included headphones has a distinct echo and even at moderate volume, the audio starts to break up slightly. On the plus side, if your MP3 or AAC files are tagged, Nokia’s player does a neat job of subdividing your tunes, as well as allowing you to create your own playlists and making it easy to send (as a message), upload or transfer your tracks wirelessly. In summary, the functionality is good, but the audio quality is distinctly average.Video playback tends to suffer from the small screen. If you like the idea of squinting at a 2.2-inch screen for entertainment, it might be for you. It’s also good for checking those mini movies you’ve just shot, but for us we would prefer our video on a larger screen, like the HTC Tattoo, as a minimum.If transferring tunes sounds or squinting at video sounds like a chore, the Nokia 7230 also comes with an FM radio. We’re not usually impressed with such things on a mobile, but this one is a bit of a gem. Autotune comes at a touch of a button, reception is good, as is the sound quality in relation to your average home FM radio. The only slight annoyance is the radio being a few clicks away from the media interface, really it should be operating in the same zone. Note also that the radio only works with the headset, so no blasting Chris Moyles all over the morning bus commute – although you can switch to speaker mode if you’re that way inclined.The one plus of having less multimedia options on a phone is less wear and tear on your battery. We’ve been hammering the camera, the video recorder, the music player and the web access and the battery has stood up to it very well.Talk time is over four hours, with standby at a healthy 14+ days and even with using all those added features, we found the battery didn’t need to be charged for three to four days of heavy use. If you like your phone in your hand rather than in a socket, you’ll like the Nokia 7230.Nokia 7230: Organiser If you find life drifting away from you, the on-board organiser might offer just the helping hand you need. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a calendar with the option to add notes and view appointments by day, week or month and little audio reminders of what’s coming up. Simple and effective, but no syncing with any online calendars if you are looking for that – that’s par for the course at this price, with others like the INQ Mini 3G missing out on the synchronisation game too.Other added tools include a calculator, alarm clock, a ‘to-do’ list, timer and stopwatch, as you would expect, along with a conversion tool for weights and currency, as well as a size convertor, should you be shopping in a foreign land. You know, the kinds of things you don’t know you need until you actually need them.ConnectivityConnectivity on the Nokia 7230 has been steady, if unspectacular. Basic connection never died completely, but for a 3G phone, we haven’t seen that 3G symbol nearly enough. Ok, that might be down to the local network, but having used other handsets in the same area, this particular phone is certainly no better and occasionally, seems worse. No Wi-Fi on board the Nokia 7230 as you have probably guessed, so when it comes to web browsing and accessing email, the variable 3G might be a problem. We have certainly found it frustrating.The phone does come with Bluetooth and it’s very easy to use. Testing it with a Mac, it’s just a matter of turning it on, pairing and you’re away. Transfer speeds were very brisk, with an MP3 transferring in less than a minute.Just as well really. The lack of a cable to hook up to a PC in the box means Bluetooth is pretty much your only way of transferring data to and from a PC/Mac when you get the phone. If you do plan on picking up a 7230, make sure you grab the additional cable off the shelf too.Nokia 7230: OtherThere’s a welcome bonus in Nokia’s Maps being pre-installed on the phone, which offers up both mapping basics and directions to your chosen UK location. No GPS here, but if you just want directions, the app is very nippy and as a helping hand round an unfamiliar town, Maps offers a very useful (and free) bonus.Games are always included and the 7230 is no exception. Take your pick between trial titles and free favourites, specifically Asphalt 4 Elite, Bounce Tales, Brian Challenge, Midnight Pool 2 and Rally Stars, plus Snake 3 and Sudoku. The trial games are slightly frustrating in that you can only get so far, but to be honest, none of them made us want to go out and buy.Finally, a voice recorder can record all those moments of inspiration you have on the move. Decent sound, easy to use, a nice thing to have.Nokia 7230: ComparisonComparisons are tough because the 7230 falls between the budget market and higher-end sliders, but you might also want to check out the Sony Ericsson Aino , which adds more bulk and a bigger price tag, but does come with GPS, a far better media player and BBC iPlayer out of the box.Alternatively, messaging and networking on a budget is available via the INQ Chat 3G coming in at under 100.Finally, if you want your slider to multi-task, do media to a high standard and offer up a touchscreen interface too, check out the Palm Pre.To compare the Nokia 7230 with the cutting-edge touchscreens of the day is unfair. After all, it’s a moderately-priced handset that comes without any claims of being a world beater. We likedIt’s small, it’s fairly stylish and it offers up just about all the basics you could ask of a mobile phone, even if some of those functions are more successful than others. There’s also 3G connectivity, a big plus for the price point.It also comes with a range of apps and extras you might not expect for a phone in its price bracket, a good quality outdoor camera and decent web interaction for example, not to mention solid apps for social networking.We dislikedBut in the end, the Nokia 7230 is simply punching above its weight. Scratch the surface and many of those features just don’t cut it against the big boys. There’s no denying that the Nokia 7230 is an attractive handset offering a budget-friendly 3G experience, good calling and messaging functionality, a strong battery life and some decent tools for both web use and social networking. But intermittent problems with Ovi, a flash-free camera, poor quality media player and disappointing email highlight just why the handset sells in this price bracket.Related LinksTechRadar’s Reviews GuaranteeMore mobile phone reviewsRelated StoriesReview: LG Chocolate BL20Review: Acer Liquid S100Review: Nokia E72Review: HTC HD MiniReview: Nokia 5230