Video: Sony Phone Watch demo at CES 2012

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

The phone watch is an idea that just isn’t going away, with a different spin of the concept produced pretty much every year at CES. But this time, Sony assures us, it’s really going to happen and it’s really going to be fabulous.

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At last! A phone that doesn’t lie

Monday, February 16th, 2009

There are many things I’ve learnt to distrust over the years. PRs who start a conversation with the phrase “have you got 30 seconds?”, my Dad’s woefully optimistic assessment of the carnage he’s unleashed on his PC, and West Ham’s back four, for instance. But none more so than the battery indicator on mobile phones.

They are pathological liars. They’ll spend two days displaying five full bars of battery goodness, only to chomp their way through the remaining bars in six-and-a-half minutes. I’ll never buy a Sony Ericsson phone again after the time I left the house with the full five bars of battery, only to end up on the motorway hard shoulder a couple of hours later, barking instructions to my girlfriend in a demented verbal shorthand, because the battery had inexplicably drained down to the last sodding bar.

And what does the phone do when it’s approaching battery Armageddon? Does it go into Apollo 13 mode and start shutting down every last unnecessary amp of power? No, it starts twittering out “battery low” warnings like a budgie on Speed, serving only to chip another few seconds off your remaining talktime in the process.

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The future’s here, and it’s quite retro

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

I just got back after a couple of days off work to find two mobile phone watches have landed on my desk. That’s right – mobile phones, in a watch. Watches that are mobile phones. It’s official, the future is here, and it’s come in the form of a chunky plastic wrist accessory.

What next for Pro? Jet-packs? Flying cars? Meals in a pill? Who knows. All I can tell you is that I was running up and down Tottenham Court road at lunch pretending I was the Hoff in Knight Rider.

This particular one that I’m testing today, which strangely came with no product or manufacturer’s name but can be bought here, has Bluetooth, quad-band operation, video recording and an MP3 player, all controlled by a tiny, tiny touchscreen. Keep an eye out in PC Pro for the full reviews.

A first look at the HTC Touch Pro

Friday, August 15th, 2008

If you keep close tabs on the smartphone scene – and PC Pro’s reviews section – you’ll know that we weren’t too impressed with HTC’s response the iPhone 3G, the Touch Diamond a couple of months ago.

We liked the fact that it buried most of Windows Mobile’s ugliness under an attractive, finger-friendly touchscreen interface, and we liked its fantastic VGA screen. We were also keen on its fantastic web browser – Opera Mobile 9.5.

But we hated its sluggish performance. The whole point of touchscreen interfaces is that they should be responsive, but this was anything but. Hit a control on screen and, like as not, you’d have to wait a second or so before anything actually happened. It was one of the most frustrating phones we’ve ever had the displeasure to use.

Would the same issues afflict its big brother – the Touch Pro, which arrived in the Labs today?

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Do you ever leave your mobile phone at home?

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

We’ve been arguing about mobile phones in the office today, specifically when and where it’s appropriate to have one, and if anyone ever goes out without it. It all started around holidays and traveling – do you really need to take a mobile phone with you; is it an unnecessary distraction, or a useful backup in case of trouble?

Nowadays we seem to have them on us at all times of the day and night. For many people its even the first thing they see in the morning, as they use it as an alarm clock. We are even protesting to be able to use them on planes.

One unnamed debater, who ironically has the loudest and most irritating ring tone I have ever heard, argued that they should be left at home when on holiday at least. Another suggested that in case of an accident you may be grateful that you have it with you.

Personally, I’m terrible at keeping hold of them – I’ve lost several in the last few months, rarely keep them charged and never remember to transfer friend’s numbers to new handsets. It’s currently been around two weeks since I last turned mine on, and the world has yet to crumble around me. I simply don’t feel like I need it in my day to day life. However, when I travel it comes with me and when I go on a long solo bike ride it comes with me – you never know what will happen.

Mobile phone vs my life

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

I, like a lot of you, own a mobile phone that stores more than just a few phone numbers. Being a BlackBerry Pearl it also has copies of my recent emails, my full contacts lists and all sorts of notes that I find useful. Obviously this information is backed up, so losing a phone is not a problem in that respect. But when this phone’s keyboard packed up I wanted to erase this data before I returned it for replacement.

A quick call to Vodafone and a replacement was on its way, but I had to return the broken one. Fine I said, but how do I erase my personal data on this phone? All its suggestions involved using the keyboard, not much help really. Why not have a reset button on these phone that will clear all the data on them? Better than that, why can’t the service provider ( Vodafone in this case ) send a signal to the phone to instruct it to erase all the data on it, obviously with your permssion?

Is it any surprise that personal data theft is a big problem nowadays when such small devices that can easily get lost or stolen can contain such a wealth of private information?

Come on you phone providers, think about security: the more information we store on these devices the more important it is that this information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Or am I just being paranoid?

Keep your bloody phone lines, I’m off to cable

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

I moved house a couple of weeks ago. Very spacious actually, although the garden could do with a trim, thanks for asking. Being an IT nerd, the first thing I did when I’d finished unloading boxes was to get the phone line and Internet set up – how hard can it be, right?

The answer, according to those lovely folks over at BT and TalkTalk, appears to be “as difficult as we can possibly make it without sticking two fingers up and suggesting yoghurt pots and a piece of string”.

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