Camera Phones Plaza

RIM is creating more attractive devices for some time. Even without being the latest or greatest of RIM devices, the Bold 9000 is the pioneer in the new direction chosen by RIM for its gadgets. RIM was initially the only company that offered push e-mail. This was and still is a very attractive feature for the business customers who depend on information. But the other mobile phones manufacturers started to release devices who offered this kind of e-mail. Therefore Blackberry devices were upgraded with modern features.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
The Blackberry Bold sports an excellent connectivity, a magnificent screen and one of the best QWERTY keyboards. The Bold 9000 is extremely well equipped regarding the emission standards; because a PDA phone from Canada usually is not equipped with HSDPA. By doing so RIM wanted to increase quality in its devices. The Bold 9000 entered the market at a later date than initially announced. Therefore all the issues with the software were fixed before the official release.

The first impression when you hold the Bold is that RIM really improves the Blackberry's design using a much more commercial look. The Bold precedes both Storm and the Curve 8900 so the different design choices are understandable. The glossy black front is pretty nice and the false leather at the back looks good. The overall design of the Bold 9000 is a great, but the profile is not as sharp and neat as the Curve 8900. The chrome frame on the left is not a great element. It only adds a few more millimeters of thickness to the Bold. Even more is not actually chrome, more a chrome-like plastic. The front panel of the Bold 9000 respects the standard of its class. Great features here are the excellent landscape display and the flawless QWERTY keyboard. The left side of the Bold 9000 features one of the loudspeaker, the 3.5 mm jack and the mini USB port. On the right we have the second loudspeaker, the volume keys and other feature keys. There called feature keys because you can assign them whatever function you would like. The top of the Bold 9000 features the mute key while at the bottom the device sports the microphone.

The Blackberry Bold is still a big phone if you compare it to the Nokia E71. Its height reaches 114 mm, wide of 66 mm and deep of 14 mm the Bold weight 133 g. It looks like the weight or volume played a smaller role in comfort than the extremely friendly keyboard and the wide display. The Blackberry Bold is equipped with a TFT display of HVGA resolution - 480 x 320 pixels, with a 6.8 cm diagonal - 2.6". The 6.8 cm diagonal really helps you work with Office documents or web pages. The Bold 9000 has a fabulously bright and vibrant display, while the Trans reflective technology improves the quality of reading from the display in bright light. Landscape displays are more natural to work with. The reason of why manufacturers don't pick this feature in their phones is to save space.

The Bold 9000 has the best display from the Blackberry series. Because of the ergonomic keypad and the excellent organized menu working with the Bold is a real treat. Bold is playing in the smart phone line so the connectivity is well ensured by all standards. It works in 2G network, GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, and in the 3G network, HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100. Also it has GPRS Class 10 (4 + 1 / 3 + 2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps, EDGE, Class 10, 236.8 kbps, HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps, WLAN is represented by Wi-Fi with 802.11 a/b/g standard, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and micro USB v2.0. The HSDPA comes without the rapid upload option HSUPA. The Blackberry Bold is equipped with a great CPU. This CPU runs on a 6524 MHz frequency. Tanks to this feature all the work you will be doing on the Bold will run smoothly.

As for the operating system, the Blackberry Bold 9000 runs on the Blackberry OS v4.6.0112. The home screen and the main menu have nice and simple icons. You can customize your menu but also the standby appearance of the display. Beside the great CPU, the Bold boosts a 874 MB usable memory. Therefore the RIM device provides with one of the largest storage capacity for data and music in the PDA phone line with only one exception, the Samsung i900. The memory can be expanded by using a micro SD card. Be careful, the Bold 9000 will not work with a 16 GB card, it barely runs with an 8GB model. The specs list is completed with GPS module and a 2 MP digital camera, 1600 x 1200 pixels, LED flash.



The hardware is also convincing because Bold offers good signal quality. However the loudspeaker is not the great. You could end up missing a call or two. Therefore it is a good idea to keep the Bold within reach. The autonomy is excellent for a PDA phone when features are used proportional. Some users might be less fortunate if they are only using the call function or the push e-mail. If you think about it, this is the users Bold 9000 is trying to impress. So, with a standard Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery the Bold has a stand by time up to 310 hours and a talk time up to 5 hours. In the UMTS mode Bold has up to 3 hours call time.

The Bold leading menu includes 28 symbols - here we can find beside the messaging button for e-mail, MMS and SMS symbols for PIM features: address, calendar, tasks and notes. RIM united under the same symbol videos, MP3, photos, ringtones and voice memos which don't impact in a negative way the usability. However the music player lacks some extras like equalizer presets, track repeat option and also if you minimize the player in the background you will not have any indication of the currently playing song. At the Application symbol you can find features that will let you view and edit Word and Excel documents.



The Blackberry Bold 9000 also offers a web browser, pocket calculator and Blackberry software navigation that will download maps from the network. Overall RIM Blackberry Bold offers up to date technology wrapped under a mature design.

Smartphones, by definition, are smart cell phones, and they offer their users a lot of features: they can make calls, they can send/receive e-mail, surf the Web, be connected with their friends, family and work colleagues, they have multimedia centers on the mobile device, what could they want more? A smartphone is like a Swiss Army Knife for professionals.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
New tools are added to smartphones, and people seem to like them more and more daily. For example, more and more people use the built-in GPS and find it very useful, because it helps them to find specific locations and the best thing is that the number of the GPS-equipped models is continuously growing. Cell phone carriers understand its utility and they started to create special services for GPS devices, like Verizon's VZ Navigator, Sprint's Sprint Navigation and AT&T's TeleNav GPS Navigator.

GPS capabilities started to show their utility, and now they are not seen anymore like a luxury show-off. It really helps smartphone users to get real-time position tracking, they get text and voice guidance for reaching destinations, and a lot of points of interest. There are also trade-offs, not only advantages: the small screens are not suitable for car usage, and the GPS radio will affect battery life, in a negative direction, of course, but the voice prompts and helps you to avoid these problems, by announcing you when the battery is almost over.

GPS manufacturers are trying to enter mobile devices market, and they created a navigator-phone which offers part of a smartphone's features, but its design is focused on the GPS feature, and it somehow is a novelty, but it cannot be compared with the smartphones available on the market.

There are a lot of smartphones which have GPS capabilities, but if you already have one which cannot help you with this feature, you can add it this functionality with a Bluetooth receiver. Taking into account that a standalone GPS device is not anymore the only way to get navigation guidance, you can think of smartphones or cell phones which have GPS support, and if they do not have it, you can add software or accessories to transform your mobile phone into a navigation device.



If you have a Bluetooth enabled smartphone, you can pair it with a receiver, and this is how you will get real-time tracking on your mobile device. A lot of receivers come with mapping software, but you should check on the manufacturer's website on in the device's manual to see if it is compatible with the phone. If you don't need to deal with external gadgets, you can just get a car kit, which is a standalone GPS, with maps preloaded on an SD card.

With the solutions offered by network carriers you can get turn by turn driving directions and colored maps; moreover you can search for local businesses or interest points, and in some cases you can get the traffic updates so you can take the shortest and less crowded road to your destination. These solutions from the big carriers require a subscription fee, and as an alternative, you can use Google Maps for Mobile to get the same features (it is free, but you need a data plan for maps and traffic information).

Here are some good smartphones, GPS enabled, and for each of them a short description about how GPS works on them.



BlackBerry has released the latest device with a large touchscreen which can switch immediately between vertical and horizontal views. This large screen is perfect for GPS applications and it works better with business applications that its predecessors.



T-Mobile G1 is the first mobile device which runs the Android OS, and it includes a GPS receiver (built-in) and it has also location-based applications, like Loopt.



Palm Pre provides the standard locating information and the directions, and it is also linked to Pre's universal searching feature, which includes Wikipedia, Google, and Google Maps. Sprint Navigation is installed on the phone when you purchase it, and this application includes: driving directions (turn by turn), business finder with more than 10 million points of interest, traffic alerts and fuel prices, but full nationwide color maps too.

In the Apple AppStore, there are more than 400 navigation dedicated applications available for iPhone 3G, and it remains the champion in services and applications too. Just to mention some applications, I would name Snocatore, GPS Lite and Groundspeak for geocaching.



The only winner in all this competition is the customer, which has only benefits from this war between the smartphones manufacturers, because the features which are added in this competition between the companies only help the users and they make their smartphone user life easier.

RIM BlackBerry, with its slim design and improved keyboard brings users a cool device, proper for a lot of business, and personal use also. This smartphone has a 2Mp camera, Bluetooth support, media player and spell checker which are very useful for e-mail and memos. This phone doesn't integrate WiFi or 3G support and the camera doesn't offer video recording, but the the design is very elegant and the whole set of features make it perfect for a lot of BlackBerry fans.

<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
BlackBerry Curve is comfortable to hold in your hand, and pretty easy to use as a phone and as a computing device too, and even if it is a little wider than common phone calls (anyway, it is a smartphone, so the dimensions are excused) it feels safe in one's hands. The phone has a rubbery texture, and it is easier to grip, but it still needs some protection.

Phones and other portable devices are very exposed to scratches and other damages provoked by external factors. The best way to protect your mobile device would be a case, where it can safely be kept, and then you can slip it in your pocket, bag or backpack. The cases variety is very large, and you can find them in thousands of models, patterns and colors. A smartphone case also reflects your personality, so you might want to get a serious black one if you are a company's CEO or a cheerful vibrant one if you are an artist with a little more special vision on the world.

The material the case is made of is also important because it offers protection to the smartphone and it must be resistant. In the same time, the case must allow you access to the device's ports and you can use it easily in any circumstances. Leather is the best material for mobile phone cases, because it cushions the phone from drops or falls. Aluminium is also used in this industry, and it offers a good protection for your device, and it can be found in various combinations with other materials, and color schemes.

It's already known that women will like colorful and stylish cases, and there is a wide range of cases for them, in a lot of colors like green, blue, red, and orange which can be a spot of color in their outfit, and let's not forget about the trendy pink, which is preferred by a special category of BlackBerry women users. The top preferences among women are magenta, red and pink, and there are the cases with floral and abstract pattern designs, which also are among the preferred cases models for women.



This cute red case is specially designed for BlackBerry Curve 8900 and it is made of silicone which has carbon fiber pattern printed on it. This case has a breakthrough design and it protects the entire device with its full coverage. You have access to all ports and buttons and you will like the carbon fiber design because it looks futuristic. This is a nice case for a woman, and most important of all aspects, it offers very good protection for your precious smartphone.



Not very eco-friendly, but stylish and comfortable, this pink lambskin leather offers you best protection for your phone. It has a swivel clip too, and you can adjust it according to your needs. You can keep it in an upright position when you are walking or moving around, and you can set it parallel with your belt for the times when you sit down. This case has indentations which protect the smartphone's trackball and this ensures you that the device cannot be activated accidentally. The case also has a proximity sensor, and you will know when the BlackBerry is in place. The screen will be shut off when the smartphone is in the case, and this will maximize the life of the battery. The technology offers you the possibility to have different notification sounds or alerts for calls, emails or messages wheter the device is in the case or not.



This case is compatible with Curve 8300 Series and it is very elegant and it is made of handcrafted leather. The slim design protects the device in an optimal manner and the padded design make this case the great place for holding your phone. This case was not designed for bet clip, so it can be used only for your pockets, but it sill is cool and protects your smartphone from damages and scratches. Beyza SlimLine Series Case is designed as a tasteful case which protects the device and adds it a stylish touch. The unique design and the top quality leather used in manufactuing it will make you really enjoy using this case.

This smartphone case is compatible with more models, not only with the Curve Series. It can store your smartphone, the credit and business cards and even the cash in the horizontal pouch. This case, just like the pink one mentioned previously, has a proximity sensor and it will show you if the phone is in there or not, and it will shut off the screen for saving battery life. BlackBerry can be customized and you can set up special ringtones and alerts for in-holster position. It is important to take care what kind of items you place in the case, because the magnetic strip on credit or debt cards can erase the data stored on the card. This wallet-case can be found in various colors, and I think it is bvery useful for women, who carry a lot of small useful things.

Owning a BlackBerry is a pretty cool thing, but cooler than this is taking the calls hands-free. then you set up the connection, or when you have been using it for a while, there might appear some problems with the Bluetooth headset. There are a few simple steps you should follow to solve your Bluetooth headset-BlackBerry Curve problems.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
The most common problems are concerning missed connections, incompatibility between the headsets and the smartphone, power issues, freezing or reset settings.

Syncing the Bluetooth device with the BlackBerry must be done with both devices entering sync mode in the same time, and if the timing is off, the connection will not work properly. When you connect the Bluetooth device to the smartphone, you might not be able to establish a good connection, and an "Unable to Connect to Bluetooth Device" message will be displayed. To solve this problem, try to turn off the phone and place the devices to be connected closer together and restart the connecting process.

Another known issue in Bluetooth connections matter is about the power. When both the headset and the BlackBerry are not fully charged, they won't be able to sync. It is very important to use all the time fully charged devices before trying to set up a connection. Certain headset models manufactured by third party companies may not be compatible with Curve BlackBerry. It is very important to buy Bluetooth headsets for your smartphone only from your carrier, and this will ensure compatibility. You should also check the specifications before buying a Bluetooth headset and see if the headset and the smartphone use the same standard for wireless connections, and when the headset you are trying to use if wholly incompatible with the smartphone you own, try to return it to manufacturer's stores, and you might get even a refund.

Often, for no reason, BlackBerry series of smartphones freeze. If you experience this while trying to connect a Bluetooth headset, or while you are using one of these accessories, turn off the phone and start it again. If this doesn't work, you should try a hard reset (pull out the battery for 1 minutes, and replace it). It will take 5 minutes for the smartphone to reboot, and when it has restarted, you will be able to use it without incidents.

It often happens that when you perform resets on the BlackBerry Curve smartphone the settings to be set back to the default options, including the Bluetooth settings. If this happens, it is easy to solve it: re-sync the headset with the smartphone, and functionality is ensured.

These are some issues faced pretty often by BlackBerry users, but there is a solution for almost everything. If you faced other problems when using your Bluetooth devices with BlackBerry Curve, please comment and let us know about it, and how did you solve the problem. Sharing your experiences might help a lot of other people which are using this type of smartphone and faced the same issues. I hope that along with the OS improvements these issues will be fixed and users will be able to flawlessly use their mobile devices.

BlackBerry Maps has been released for all BlackBerry models, and LBS (Location-Based Services) are facing a continuous growth in quality and in number also.  GPS os BlackBerry doesn't come easy, so here are some tips for using it. Most users will use GPS in conjunction with BlackBerry Maps, and taking into account that paring the GPS puck with the proper GPS procedure is very important, when purchasing a BlackBerry you should think of choosing a device with internal GPS, like, for example, 7520 (although they are old and clunky), or maybe a Bluetooth GPS Receiver.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
Using the GPS puck (Bluetooth GPS Receiver) paired with your BlackBerry should be easy if you follow these steps:

1. Turn on the GPS Receiver. It will take about 10 minutes for it to get the position and acquire satellites. There will also be some subsequent attempts for establishing the position, and they will take around 30 seconds to 1 minute until the GPS puck acclimatizes with the North American location (usually they are produces in Taiwan). I recommend setting up the puck outside, because large buildings can interfere with the GPS signal and you may get it distorted. If you connect this Bluetooth receiver when you are inside, where you don't have a clear view of the sky, it might make more difficult the process of finding a signal, and if it works pretty hard, if it makes a "warm search", you should pull out the battery and then pop it back.

2. From smartphone's menu, choose Set Up Bluetooth, and a dialog box will appear with "Please ensure your Bluetooth device is in pairing mode". After this, you should press OK and the phone will begin searching for Bluetooth devices in range. This usually takes up to 1 minute, but the average search lasts for 30 seconds.

3. After the search, the smartphone will list all the Bluetooth devices found within the range and you will have to choose the GPS Receiver from that list. The smartphone will ask you for a passkey. Because it is a first use, type in 0000 or 1234 (these are the most common passwords used), and after the password verification, the Bluetooth should be enabled and the device should be listed.

4. It is strange, but even if Bluetooth has been enabled on the smartphone, it is not turned on. This is one common problem for GPS receiver users, and it it somehow bad because BlackBerry Maps will tell you that the smartphone is paired with a device even when the Bluetooth is not turned on. For using BlackBerry Maps, you should make sure that your connection is on, and you can check this by selecting the icon in the main menu ( it is on when the text changes to "Turn Bluetooth Off" and the icon is highlighted)

5. Enter the BlackBerry Maps applications and go to Options from the menu. Select the GPS Device Option (which should display none), and then select "Change Option" in the menu. The device which you have just paired should be on the list. Select it and then click the TrackBall. The GPS Receiver should be highlighted as the main device. When you exit save the changes.

6.In the BlackBerry Maps menu select Start GPS and if the puck has acquired its position, on the map you should see a Chevron and it should rotate in the direction you are traveling. The screen will display also the bearing and your speed, as well the street you are on, if you zoomed in enough.

7. If you prefer North to be always up, you can set this up from the application's menu, but if you would like the map to rotate as you travel, select the "Track Up" option in the menu. You can also get additional information on the screen, like the time, battery and signal strength, the number of the satellites you receive information from or if you have any e-mails. This can be set up by pressing U on the QWERTY devices or Q on SureType devices. All this information will appear on the Title Bar. If you see that the number of the satellites is 0, it means that the GPS receiver hasn't locked onto the position.

8. Displaying the map on the entire screen is easy too and can be done by pressing space; this will switch the application from GPS mode to Map mode.

There are some applications specially designed for BlackBerry which focus on the geocaching feature. BasicGPS is one of these applications and it is very useful when you are driving a car and you want to know your location or the destination. It works on Windows Mobile (5 or 6) or on PDAs with GPS support. This application requires Microsoft Compact Framework 2.0, which can easily be downloaded from Internet.

Another interesting application is GPSLogger, which records your location on the BlackBerry, with elevation and speed included. It is able to guide you to a previously saved location, and this can be done using the "Guide me Home" feature. This application records your movement in time, displays the coordinates (with good accuracy for latitude and longitude), it shows you the number of satellites which position you and the altitude too, and the heading and speed are also provided. This application has a wide range of view modes available, like Path View, Speed View, Timing or Compass View or the Direction View mode.

Both applications presented here are freeware and they can easily be installed on your BlackBerry. You should know that there are a lot of GPS software applications, and all of them have more or less useful features, but the most important thing is to find one which offers you a high quality positioning and features which fir your needs.