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.

Sony Ericsson Aino
After announcing a November release of their first new generation multimedia phone, the Satio, Sony Ericsson have released details of another device – the Aino. Unlike the totally touchscreen Satio, the Aino has a slide out keypad as well as touchscreen functionality. The Aino also seems to pack a heavy punch in the multimedia department with [...]We love mobile phonesSony Ericsson Aino

The Dominance of SmartPhones Continues in the Mobile Phone Industry
Over the last three years we have seen SmartPhones increase in popularity as countless people across the world are willing to pay 200+ for a phone that will let them do just about anything. With the boom of the SmartPhone we can expect to see older models fade away into the background as the likes [...]We love mobile phonesThe Dominance of SmartPhones Continues in the Mobile Phone Industry

Full touch Nokia C7 leaked, 8-megapixel camera on board
Now what have we got here? Images of Nokia’s first 8-megapixel full touch cameraphone have just popped up. The Nokia C7 will finally close the gap between the bunch of company’s 5-megapixel cameraphones…

LG GU292 Phone (AT&T)
Released for AT&T, the LG GU292 is a push-to-talk music phone with a compact slide design. Users can instantly talk with up to seven people using PTT technology, even over Bluetooth for hands-free calls.

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In Depth: Dell Streak: 10 things you need to know
The Dell Streak is available in the UK today, so we thought it was time to give you a full guide to the new Android-toting tablet cum smartphone.So here’s 10 things you simply must know about Dell’s new mobile computing device. The Dell Streak specs are that it’s a 3G, EDGE and 7.2Mbps HSDPA handset with Bluetooth 2.1, GPS and Wi-Fi. There will also be a dock available for it enabling you to connect it to an HDTV via HDMI.Hands on: Dell Streak review1. The Dell Streak is a tablet Dell and its partners are clearly positioning the Streak as a tablet device – not least because every single piece of advertising is using the ‘T’ word. But if there wasn’t an iPad we’re not sure it would be making this claim. The 16:9 WVGA 800 x 480 screen is 5-inches across, so while it’s significantly bigger than the iPhone or HTC Desire, it certainly isn’t a tablet in the traditional sense. It’s still more of a ‘larger smartphone’ than a tablet in our book, since tablets are usually larger – the iPad clocks in with a 9.7-inch display, for example.2. But the Dell Streak can make calls So the Streak is a tablet, but it has a novel feature. You can also make telephone calls to people! You know, like we used to. The only problem with this function is that you’ll look stupid. Holding up a Streak isn’t that far off the concept of holding up an iPad to your ear. Thankfully, though, the Streak also packs stereo Bluetooth 2.1, so you can easily use a headset instead. 3. The Dell Streak runs Android Dell first showed off the Streak in January at CES in Las Vegas. We were impressed with the look of it even then. Though we suspected it would run Android, we didn’t know for sure. But Dell has certainly taken a big step with Android given its Windows-centric past. The Streak will ship with Android 1.6 with a couple of tweaks and widgets, but essentially giving you the standard Android experience – with full access to all the Android Market has to offer. That includes full turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation, aided by the in-built GPS (which the basic Wi-Fi only Apple iPad doesn’t have, of course). Dell says that later in the year we’ll see the Streak get an Android 2.2 update with Adobe Flash Player 10.1.4. The Dell Streak packs Snapdragon not Atom Qualcomm’s now well-known ARM-based 1GHz Snapdragon chip powers the Streak, something we’re sure long-term Dell partner Intel is watching with interest. Intel has just announced the smartphone-orientated version of its Atom chip (though there are no handsets announced as yet) – it also supports Android. 5. The Dell Streak is a video-conferencing device There’s a front-facing VGA camera, while Dell has also promised “video chat applications and other software innovations” for later in the year. For normal photography there’s a 5 MP camera on the back with autofocus and a dual LED flash, plus one-touch upload to the web. 6. The Dell Streak has Gorilla Glass The display is tough. Really tough – check it out. 7. The Dell Streak doesn’t have a lot of on-board storage 2GB. That’s a disappointing amount of storage for such an expensive device and, while it’s enough for plenty of Android apps, you’re hardly going to be able to store a huge amount of music or photos. However, there is support for microSD up to 32GB and a 16GB card is included. 8. The Dell Streak is packaged in Bamboo We haven’t seen this yet as we’ve only seen a device in a little pouch rather than the box but according to Dell, the Streak is “packaged with cushions made from 100 per cent sustainable, compostable bamboo”. Errrrr.9. The Dell Streak is available through O2 and the Carphone Warehouse O2 has the initial exclusive on the handset, with its own stores and Carphone Warehouse selling it first. Dell’s own site will start shifting Streaks later in the month. You can get it for 25 a month with no voice calls or text allowance, or 35 a month with a voice tariff. 10. Or you can pay 429As for SIM-free, the Dell Streak price is 429 the same price as a certain other tablet we’ve seen recently. That’s quite a hefty amount when you consider what the iPad can do, its memory and the size of its screen. Related StoriesiPad UK pre-sale beginsBest iPad data plans for UK buyersBT to launch touchscreen iPad rivalIn Depth: Apple iPad Wi-Fi vs iPad 3G: which is best?Hands on: Dell Streak review

In Depth: Microsoft’s TechEd 2010: the highlights
Windows 7 doesn’t need much of a service pack, says Microsoft and so Windows 7 Service Pack 1 didn’t make much of an appearance in the opening keynote at this year’s TechEd conference.”Windows 7 is great, it’s rock solid, people are deploying it like gangbusters – we’re seeing a lot of positive feedback,” senior Windows product manager Justin Graham told TechRadar.So all you’ll get when SP1 comes along (the Windows 7 SP1 beta release date is “by the end of July”) is the updates you already have if you use Windows Update and some hotfixes that haven’t previously been made available.Microsoft couldn’t give us any details of what these cover or when the cutoff point for including updates in the service pack will be: “There’s still a lot of hotfixes and updates to come before we go to SP1,” group product manager Ward Ralston told us, confirming that even though it’s just updates there will still be a public beta for SP1.Office Communicator 14You may not be longing for the virtualised GPU in Windows Server 2008 R2 on your desktop, but we’d like to see features from the upcoming Office Communicator “14″ that Microsoft showed off for the first time at TechEd come to Windows Messenger; in particular the HD 720p video conferencing using what corporate vice president Gurdeep Singh Pall said was a $50 webcam instead of “the $300,000 solutions that you might have seen”.He predicted a wide range of high-definition cameras from hardware manufacturers and Microsoft president Bob Muglia added that “we do expect in the not-too-distant future to see HD cameras being built into laptops”.Communicator also gets the same kind of social networking makeover as Messenger gets in Windows Live Wave 4, with status updates and photos for the people in your contact list, colour-coded to show whether they’re online (and the same mini-contact card that pops up when you hover over an email contact in Outlook).MESSENGER-LIKE: Communicator 14 will show Facebook-style updates for contacts – with photosDocument sharing is now based on Silverlight for better reproduction of files (the same way Office documents in the Office Web apps look better if you have Silverlight installed). These two apps aren’t likely to ever merge into one single messaging tool (because Communicator has tools like links to your voicemail, with transcriptions done by Exchange Server), but features from one often show up in the other later on.Azure, Silverlight and BingYou might never use Microsoft’s Azure cloud service yourself, but Microsoft CIO Tony Scott gave us another reason to be fond of it: the Microsoft teams use it to build some services much faster. He demoed Showcase, a new Silverlight tool on the Microsoft web site for browsing and watching the multitude of videos that Microsoft creates. Instead of trying to find where Microsoft keeps the how-to Office videos or guessing where a video about the Sidewinder keyboard would be, you can look through categories or search. It’s no YouTube but if a Microsoft product video ever goes viral, the site won’t fall over.Silverlight also made an appearance as part of the latest Bing news. You still have to pretend to be American to get the Silverlight preview of Bing Maps but it’s worth it for the latest version; it’s built in Silverlight 4 so as well as smooth zooming and apps that layer more data over the map, you get a right-click context menu. There are more new apps, including a live weather map from WeatherBug, but the big news was the release of the Bing Maps SDK, letting any developer build map apps and submit them to the Bing gallery. APPS AHEAD: So far there’s only been a handful of Bing map apps like these US health details and the new weather app; now anyone can get the SDK to put their own data on top of Bing MapsMicrosoft distinguished Engineer Amir Netz showed it off with an app using the Silverlight Pivot control; this uses Deep Zoom to let you zoom into high-resolution images at a remarkably high speed, then rearrange them (into a bar chart, say). SILVERLIGHT PIVOT: Pivot lets you zoom in to each card – or rearrange them into a chart; it’s a great combination of high-resolution images with the real data behind the imagesNetz looked at DVD sales, with sales charts made up of DVD cover images, then used those sales figures to colour code areas on Bing Maps. The Silverlight Pivot control will be available in July, so we can look forward some interesting ways of visualising information on Bing Maps. NEW VIEW: Sales figures for DVDs – each coloured block is a DVD coverUnlike Apple’s WWDC, TechEd isn’t a conference where Microsoft announces new products; it’s for business developers and IT professionals to get hands-on details about how to use Microsoft tools. So when senior product manager Augusto Valdez showed off Windows Phone 7, he concentrated on showing accessing SharePoint from an email-like list and adding comments to Excel spreadsheets. He also showed the phone getting email from two different Exchange accounts which also means you’ll be able to get push email from both Hotmail and Gmail on the same phone, for example.Related StoriesAsus readies iPad rivals for June announcementHP Slate details leaked: Atom CPU, 1080p videoNVidia and Asus announce slew of 3D PCs

Altek Leo – 14MP cameraphone with HD video and optical zoom
Altek announced the first 14 megapixel cameraphone capable of HD video recording and equipped with 3x optical zoom lens. Both Xenon and LED flashes are onboard and the best bit is that Leo will launch…

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
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

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Review: Acer Liquid S100
By bringing the fastest Android phone on the planet to market, Acer has good reason to be proud of the Liquid S100. Packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and super hi-res screen, there’s a lot to get excited about on this phone.Acer might be a relative unknown in the mobile world, but that hasn’t stopped it making an impression with first the Windows Mobile NeoTouch S200, and by bringing top-end specs and the Android OS, the Liquid S100 will be seen by some as even better.But one constant problem with Acer phones from the past is that despite bringing some nice parts, they often fail to be anything more than average in general use. So can the Liquid change that?The phone looks pretty basic out of the box, with a white plastic shell encasing a 3.5-inch screen, but with the large amount of plastic border around the display, it doesn’t look anywhere near as big as the iPhone or Samsung H1.The four touch-sensitive buttons at the bottom offer basic Android navigation, and the hieroglyph look is pretty neat.The left of the phone houses the power/lock button, and the right has the volume and shutter buttons. Pressing the former is pretty easy one handed, but the chassis creaks a little from time to time.Weirdly, Acer has decided to go for a miniUSB slot on the Liquid, which seems a little old fashioned. The slot is located on the bottom of the phone, and when charging, a little white battery indicator appears on the top of the chassis, next to the 3.5mm headphone jack, which was a neat touch.The phone has a single speaker on the back, next to the camera, which is adequate but pumps out basic ‘chav on a train’ sound quality.Pulling the battery cover off is a worrying experience it seems digging your fingernails in at the top and pulling rather hard is the way to do it, and it feels very much like you’re going to snap something off.Overall, the feel of the phone is a little cheap the plastic of the white chassis and silver buttons makes it feel a little toy-like.In the boxAcer offers a simple range of accessories in the box a miniUSB connection lead and separate charger are a nice touch, and the bundled ear phones are decent enough, doubling as a hands-free kit too (although without media control). We’re still yet to learn how to use screen protectors on a mobile yet without adding a million bubbles to the screen, but you get a few of these in the box too.There’s also a 2GB microSD card, as well as an adaptor to turn it into a full SD card too. This is pivotal, as the phone won’t save any media or photos to the 512MB inbuilt memory for some reason.Acer hasn’t played around too much with the interface on the Liquid S100, and that’s something we like. HTC’s Sense UI overlay is good because it adds so much to Android, but with the Liquid, simplicity works.This means you get the basic three home screens, one either side of the main display, and the simple bottom drag tab for menu options.Pulling down from the top will give you access to email, SMS and other notifications, and thanks to running Android 1.6, you can also hit the search key from anywhere and use local or wider search to find content on your phone or the net.The main difference from Acer is the scrollable wheels at the sides of the home screen, with the left offering music, photos and video, and the right a collection of your internet bookmarks as scrolling thumbnails this is a great feature in terms of both aesthetics and function, and exactly the sort of thing open-source Android is great for.The capacitive screen is slick and responsive you won’t feel a lot of difference between this and the HTC Hero. And the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor doesn’t disappoint on the home screen you can swipe away to your heart’s content without a hint of judder.But, we’ve got a conundrum here why does the Liquid have a Snapdragon processor, but then limit it to 768MHz? Presumably it’s capable of 1GHz as it is on the Toshiba TG01. It surely can’t be a battery issue and seems like a waste.Unlocking the phone is a simple power-menu key combo, although it would be nice to be able to light up the display by pressing any button to check for messages or the time.The rest of the Liquid pretty much follows the vanilla Android road map, with the simple system of the application running as you’d ask it to and the physical menu key offering additional functionality, such as settings or navigation options.However, more often than we could cope with the Liquid gave up on trying to process an application, with the ‘problem with X, Force Close or Wait?’ option a regular visitor to our screens not what we’d expect from a phone with such a powerful processor pushing things along.Android 1.6 brings some neat upgrades, such as a more comprehensive battery power meter, but we hope that the Liquid will get the forthcoming Android 2.1 upgrade, otherwise it’s going to feel dated pretty quickly.Google has brought an irritating problem with Android when you start the phone up and synchronise your Gmail account, all your contacts are automatically thrown at the phone. This would be great, but unless you’ve spent a good three hours sorting through them, it’s a veritable mish-mash of nonsense.Of course you can choose not to see these, but there are always some you need to keep, and that makes life a little harder when trying to organise your contacts book.Android’s contact list is pretty basic slide up and down to find the person you’re looking for, grab the tab on the side to move through quickly and alphabetically, or just type a name in through the search box to open things up and find it easily.Contacts are listed with photo and personalised ringtone and so on and we were pretty excited to see the ability to link social networks with contacts as well. However, sadly the problems within the Acer Liquid system were too great to ever see how this worked as trying to synchronise Facebook or Flickr within the phone led to the application throwing up an error message and asking us to close it down. So it means we’re back to only seeing the Android contacts menu, which isn’t all that bad in fairness. We’re not fans of the tabbed system which is used for everything calling-based, but it is nice to be able to choose your favourites and have them in a separate list to offer quick access to those you call and text the most.The dialler is nicely laid out, although it would have been nice to have some smart dialling on offer, as it’s not always easy to navigate through to your favourite friends using the contacts tab, which can be a little hard to grab and slide. And when you’ve added in Google contacts, it’s nigh on impossible for the Acer Liquid to manage to sort them all alphabetically for some reason, with it spiriting away a portion of your friends to a hidden, impossible to find location.Calling on the Acer Liquid is OK – the call quality isn’t brilliant but it’s stable enough, although we had trouble finding the speaker hole with our ear in that expanse of plastic at times. Coverage was good enough to function in most places, although it dropped out fairly regularly when in a moving vehicle – in fact, it wasn’t even worth bothering with at times. We’ve tested other devices in the same situation, such as the HTC HD2, so we know it can be done well.Messaging on the Acer Liquid S100 is a, well, difficult experience if we’re trying to put it in a balanced way. The thing about using the messaging functions on the phone is that while the Android system is good and can handle elements like threaded conversations and improved contact integration, there are some companies that can’t seem to get the basics right when it comes to text entry, and Acer is one of them.The Acer NeoTouch S200 was one such device, with it’s impossible-to-use Windows Mobile keyboard, and while the Liquid’s is miles ahead of that, it’s still sorely lacking. For one, when you’re trying to reply in a threaded conversation, trying to press the ‘Tap to compose’ screen just doesn’t work – if we hadn’t known the trick of holding down the menu icon on the touch sensitive row to force the keyboard open, messaging would have been impossible.And while the Acer Liquid does support predictive text (like on the HTC range, where it works out which word your fumbling thumbs were trying to type) it’s nowhere near as good, with it basically capitalising the letter ‘I’ and putting the odd apostrophe in here and there. But most infuriatingly, if you try and write ‘and’ or ‘an’ the Liquid will decide you actually want to write ‘Android’ instead and insert it in.On the plus side, the Liquid does have RoadSync as standard, which means that you’ve got access to Exchange email instantly. We’re big fans of this being offered, as it makes any Android phone instantly more useful as a device. The interface and synchronisation are good, as is the calendar support, so a big well done to the company for including that.The web browser on any Android phone is always good, and the Liquid is no exception. The excellent capacitive screen, while not multi-touch to offer pinch and zoom, is tip top for navigation around the mobile and full web, which is once again delivered speedily on the Acer Liquid.We’re still massively confused as to why the Liquid hasn’t beefed up its processor to the full 1GHz capability, but at least when browsing the internet it doesn’t show.Instead, pages are generally loaded very quickly with minimal lag and few incomplete sections, and the mobile web pages, such as those from the BBC, are an absolute breeze.As with all Android phones, we like the way Google has put this browsing experience together – being able to share the page you’re looking at directly to Twitter (through the excellent Twidroid) is a great example of how to interweave APIs, and the ability to see your history and bookmarks visually is a nice touch. We also like the fact the web browser on the Acer Liquid remembers your most visited pages, meaning you don’t have to go trawling back through the history to find that page you forgot to bookmark. And while there’s no Flash player on this phone (boo) it means you’re less likely to visit those sites that you might not want your partner to find you’ve been trawling through when she has a play with your shiny new phone – every cloud…As you can imagine on a phone that comes from a company with no photography heritage and at this price range, the photography options on the Acer Liquid aren’t that great. Sure, the headline specs are good enough – 5MP, autofocus and so on – but the absence of flash, LED or otherwise is a bit of a downer.The photo processing also falls a little short in our eyes as well – not only does it take an age to shoot a photo, but it also doesn’t manage to capture it quickly enough. This often leads to a bad case of blurry pictures when you move the camera away from the subject when you think the photo has finished being taken.The options for snapping away are good enough, with the ability to mess around with the ISO settings, the white balance and the effects (we’re big fans of ‘Posterise’ which adds a certain Andy Warhol effect to your photos). However, it’s not going to trouble the likes of Sony Ericsson and Samsung who are at the head of the mobile photography game.To be fair to the Acer Liquid, there still aren’t any decent cameraphones on Android, so it’s a bit harsh to say that it’s a negative point as yet. But we do miss the little review pane in the top corner of the photo-taking screen where we could check out our latest snap.Video is similarly only OK – taking something in QVGA resolution isn’t going to cut it here, which is why the option to take video in VGA mode is a welcome sight. We can’t find any published specs on the frame rate it records in, but the video we shot in good light was a little choppy, so again this isn’t going to be a great substitute for a dedicated device.The coolest thing about using media on the Acer Liquid is the ability to scroll through your files and whatnot from the home screen, as we mentioned above. Less good news – the Acer Liquid eschews the standard Android player as the default media application. If you’ve read any of our other reviews of Android phones, you’ll note that there’s a distinct lack of love for them, but what’s been bundled on the Liquid is an even worse option, which surprised us. The substitute is Nemo player, an application that bizarrely wants to crash the phone every time we used it to open a video. Want to watch more than one in succession? You can’t. Want to watch a three minute music video smoothly? You can’t… you just get a choppy, out of sync effort that frankly we found awful.Of course, you can always look at the videos through the Android video player, and this is a nice option to have, with the playback smooth enough and, while not as clear as other programs on other phones, perfectly passable.However the problem is the Acer Liquid’s little scrollwheel on the side of the home screen is set to use Nemo Player, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to change that. This means that if you want to use the one feature of the phone that uses the cool Android home screen overlay you’ll have to put up with poor playback.Music is a little better, as despite the Liquid using the Nemo player again, it has at least managed to eke some better performance out of the device with a large and easy-to-use interface – although we’re not sure it adds much on top of the default player.Music playback on the Android OS is satisfactory – upgrades over time from Google and the rest of the Open Handset Alliance (the group behind Android’s development) have made it into a useable program thankfully.A set of four large buttons take you into a finger-friendly media player, with album art a prominent part of the display. Sadly there’s no way to update this cover art from the program itself, but it’s not a deal breaker.There’s the usual other range of Google goodies on board for media too, with the top being Google-owned YouTube, which is well-implemented. You can watch videos in high quality with ease, and the interface loads quickly with minimal search lag.If you’re going to download something to make the media better on the Acer Liquid, the first place you should go is beeb Player. Essentially an unofficial port of iPlayer, it allows streaming of current programs over the internet, although there’s no download option, but we expect to see it in the official application whenever it appears.The Acer Liquid is surprisingly devoid of native applications when you turn the phone on for the first time (compared to its peers), with only RoadSync catching the eye thanks to the way it extends the Liquid’s functionality so much through corporate connectivity.Google Talk is also included as part of the Android firmware, and offers a simple way to communicate with your buddies over the chat service. You can switch between windows of friends relatively easily, but there’s no ability to add the video chat functionality from this service over the internet.Acer has added Spinlets to the Liquid as well, which initially seemed pretty cool – music from albums that you could stream for free from your device. However, the range is limited to around 10 albums, and we only recognised music from The Killers – hardly the Spotify slayer we were hoping for.File viewer Documents To Go also gives the Liquid another business edge, with the ability to view Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint presentations. Datawiz has been sneaky in putting this onto the Liquid S100, as you can’t edit docs on the go until you buy the full version. And, of course, there’s Google Maps, which is complete with StreetView as well. This works very well on the Acer Liquid, with pictures loading up fast when you move into the map to scope out an area before you get there, and navigating across vast terrain in the 2D mode also rendering quickly.When thinking about applications on the Acer Liquid, we do think it’s important you download a third-party application manager from the Market, as this will help conserve the battery life (which is crucial, as you will see later on in this review). There are a few good free ones, so just try them out and see which takes your fancy.Given the expanding nature of the Android Market app store, we’re not sure this and future Android phones will need a vast amount of inbuilt applications to be rendered a decent device – the core things from Google are there and for us that’s all we really want out the box.If we were ranking the problems of the Acer Liquid S100 in order, the battery life would likely be right at the top. Simply awful, the battery on the Liquid gives up easily within the day and will begin dropping sometimes within minutes of being disconnected from the charger. We’re not sure what’s taking up so much power, as when we consult a third-party application manager there’s always very limited memory available for new programs.We suppose in a good way, turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth doesn’t actually help the cause at all, but it does add to the mystery of the poor battery life. At least this means that it’s possibly just a rogue piece of code within the system that’s pulling the battery meter down too fast, and this could be updated in the future.We never thought a phone would be able to have a worse battery life than the Samsung Galaxy, but barely three months later, the Liquid has arrived to take that crown.RoadSync is also the best bet with this phone when it comes to organisation – the calendar function synchronises with your Exchange server to communicate all your important meetings and suchlike, and Google calendar does the same for your (probably) less important ones.What is odd is that you can’t synchronise the two – a dual calendar surely is easy to implement, but Acer hasn’t managed to do that here, adding to the irritation.Android phones are well specified when it comes to connectivity, and the Liquid is no different. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS are included by default, and while there’s no inbuilt tuner, an FM radio can be downloaded from the Market.GPS is a little disappointing on the Liquid, as it takes a while to connect to the satellites, and pretty much gives up when in a crowded city at times.We’ve had a few handsets that can lock on to your GPS signal from indoors – so we’d have hoped this would have been included in the Liquid as well.Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are good enough at finding other devices when you need them to – there’s no way to send your pictures over the latter, which we still find a strange thing to leave out (although Apple does it with the iPhone too).PC software with the Acer Liquid is non-existent – it’s pretty much just a case of you plugging the phone into your PC, waiting for it to have a think about being connected and then being allowed to transfer files across in mass storage mode.There doesn’t seem to be any dedicated software to allow you to use the Acer Liquid as a mobile modem, and the CD in the box is nothing more than a dedicated user manual.Acer Sync seemed to be the place to go to connect to your PC – but the interface only offered us the chance to synchronise with Google in the way Android already does, so this seemed a redundant icon.However, being able to interact with the file system on both the phone and the memory card is vital, and pretty much all we need the connection for (although the internal storage level is rubbish) so we can’t criticise this feature too much – although it was irritating not to be able to use the phone as a mobile modem at times.We all raised our eyebrows at the Acer Liquid when it arrived, and we were especially excited by the premise of the first Android phone to rock a 1GHz processor.Early tests we ran on it seemed to confirm our suspicions – it was nigh on impossible to make the phone crash or judder, such was the awesome processing power.We likedThe Acer Liquid is a decent device to hold in the hand – while the plastic chassis is a little flimsy feeling, and the buttons a little low quality for our tastes, the overall shape and build is good.When the phone is in comfortable territory, it pretty much flies along in terms of application management – we were able to run multiple programs at once with little hint of a problem.We liked the spinny things at the sides too – being able to see your bookmarks and media files visually was a lot of fun and the kind of thing we were expecting from the Android platform.And seeing RoadSync included was pretty cool as well – the ability to receive your work emails and calendar information expands the Acer Liquid’s range from a simple mobile device into something that can actually be useful in your day-to-day working life.We dislikedThe problem with the Acer Liquid is that while the above elements are great, only RoadSync didn’t cause us any grief when using the phone.The messaging function was beyond irritating – the lack of auto-corrected text is irritating (despite a promise of such a feature in the settings), the bug that means you have to force the keyboard to open in threaded conversations is a real rookie mistake and we found ourselves not wanting to text on the Liquid.And while most of the time the phone would function really easily and cope with most tasks, there were far too many instances of Android crashing and asking us to wait while it sorted out the issue – not cool on a phone with such a powerful processor.Verdict While most of the early promise of the Acer Liquid is realised, a lot of it isn’t and that’s a real kick in the teeth for a phone we had real hopes would be the dark horse of the Android world.Perhaps a number of the issues can be sorted out with firmware updates – the HTC Hero managed to polish it’s reputation with this, but the Nokia N97 didn’t – and given the limited profile Acer has in the mobile world it can’t afford such a slip if it’s to get a good word of mouth review.While the overall package is actually fairly slick and functional, this certainly isn’t the phone to upset the natural order in the mobile arena, and we can only hope future Android handsets from Acer (many are promised in 2010) will manage to take things to the next level.Related LinksMore mobile phone reviewsTechRadar’s Reviews GuaranteeSearch for the best Acer Liquid S100 deals at OmioRelated StoriesReview: HTC LegendReview: LG Chocolate BL20Review: Nokia E72Review: HTC HD MiniReview: Nokia 5230