The smartphone is based on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating System. It has a candybar form and has dimensions of 132 x 69 x 13 mm. The weight of the phone is 147 grams. The 4.7 inches touch screen display has a resolution of almost 480 x 800 pixels. The smartphone has a capacitive and multi-touch touchscreen display. Some features offered by the display are light sensor as well as proximity sensor.

With a battery capacity of 1730 mAh, HTC Titan II has single core snapdragon S2 processor of 1500 MHz. The smartphone has a system memory of 512 MB RAM, where as the built-in storage capacity is 16000 MB.

HTC Titan II boosts both rear and front-facing camera. It has a primary camera of 16 mega pixels, while a secondary camera of 1.3 mega pixels. It has a dual LED flash, and features such as auto focus, digital zoom, face detection, panorama, geo tagging and ISO control. The camcorder can record videos of 720p HD and has features such as continuous autofocus during video recording. The secondary camera is used for video calling.

The smartphone offers internet browsing and support HTML and HTML5. Facebook  and Twitter are already integrated with the smartphone. HTC Titan II has messaging options and features SMS, Threaded view, MMS, and Predictive text input. The smartphone has interesting features such as Voice commands, Voice dialing, and Voice recording.

The phonebook is capable of storing unlimited entries. You can sort your contacts in caller groups and save multiple numbers for all contacts. You can search the contact by both first name as well as last name. It provides option of customizing Picture ID and Ring ID. Some of the organizer tools provided by the smartphone are World clock, Alarm, Document viewer, Calendar, Calculator and Notes. The smartphone offers notification options such as polyphonic ringtones, music ringtones (MP3), vibration, silent mode, speakerphone and flight mode.

Underneath the display, there is the navigation array. It was made up of four way navigation bar with OK button in the middle, two soft keys, Call and End buttons and four more buttons for shortcuts. Underneath this, there is a hybrid QWERTY keyboard. This is a bit different from standard QWERTY keyboard. Each buttons has two letter dedicated for it; the typing experience is better than numeric keypad but not as good as the full QWERTY keyboard.  Preference is purely subjective but I liked it. The number of buttons is less than what you have on the full QWERTY keyboard and the experience is quite good too.

Typing on the Nokia E55 was easy even though the buttons are not raised above the surface. There are grooves between the buttons so there is plenty of spacing here. The semi-QWERTY keyboard also keeps the phone tidy. I have a couple of friends who say that QWERTY keyboards make the phone look a bit ugly. If you belong to this category, then you will love this handset. I certainly won’t recommend this phone to people who type long e-mails.

Nokia E55 contains all the features that you’d expect in a Symbian S60 device. There is Microsoft Exchange Server settings, IMAP and POP3 for e-mail from Gmail, Yahoo or any other service. There is also GPS courtesy of free Nokia Ovi maps. There is also access to Microsoft Office documents courtesy of QuickOffice application. It doesn’t have full functionality though, you will have to pay extra for that.

E series Nokia phones are made for business users but looking at the features, I think multimedia enthusiasts will be pleased too. The price of this phone is $339 but it is the unlocked price which is pretty good. If you have the money I’d recommend you to go for this phone. If you don’t, you might want to wait till this phone is picked up by a service provider.

Multitouch screen of the HTC Droid Incredible 2 has built in accelerometer and also proximity sensor and it felt very responsive in my lab tests. I didn’t have any problems launching the applications, scrolling through the home screens or menus and using pinch-to-zoom gestures. For navigation on the phone, there is HTC’s Sense UI or user interface. There are plenty of customization options and good helpful tools. The boot time too is faster. The virtual keyboard isn’t as fast as some other competitiors in the market but layout here is quite roomy and it was really easy to use for me.

Underneath the HTC Droid Incredible 2 display, there are the standard Android shortcuts – search, back, menu, and home. But the phone manufacturer has added another cool touch here, the icons automatically rotate when you change from portrait to landscape mode. It isn’t really an earth shattering feature but I still appreciate the extra bit done here to make this phone different. On the phone’s left, there is microUSB port and volume rocker. There aren’t any controls on the right side and I expected a dedicated camera button here. On the top, there is 3.5 mm headphones jack along with power button. On the upper right side, there is 1.3 megapixel camera located above the screen. On the back, there is eight megapixel camera along with dual LED flash.

HTC Droid Incredible 2 comes with USB cable, power adapter, reference manual, SIM card, and 16 GB microSD card pre-installed. After going through this phone, I realized that it is more than just an incremental upgrade to its predecessor. Also, you might be disappointed to see that this phone doesn’t have all the latest software and technology installed. On the bright side, I was glad to see that there were world roaming capabilities here. This is a dual mode phone and this means it offers support to both the GSM and CDMA networks. When you are in US, the phone will run on Verizon’s Wireless CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A and when you go abroad, the phone switches to a GSM network automatically.

This tablet was announced by the manufacturer some time earlier and it is now available on the AT&T network with LTE support. It is a part of the Galaxy S II handset which is one of the best Android phones out there at the moment. There are some things that you need to consider and here I discuss all of them.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes with 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8660 dual core processor inside which is known to perform impressively. In my tests, the tablet was running pretty well and the battery life was about nine hours on a full charge. The performance on AT&T LTE and 4G network too was acceptable.

What is it all about?

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is a tablet having an 8.9 inches display and it is really light and thin. The weight of the tablet is 15.8 ounces which is a bit heavy than Kindle but it lighter than Apple iPad 2 which weighs 22 oz. The screen has a display of 1,280×800 pixels and it is a 16:9 TFT PLS LCD screen. The display is responsive and bright and this is the first Android tablet to give me a fluid user experience.

There isn’t any removable storage onboard but you do 12 GB of memory for storing your data. There is a front facing two megapixels camera and a rear facing three megapixels camera. The picture quality isn’t awesome but still acceptable for a tablet.

On the top left, there is power button and audio controls are located next to this button close to a headphone jack. Right top edge has a tiny slot for SIM cards and on the bottom, there are two speakers which give muffled audio especially when you lay the device on the bottom edge.

The cool

In my tests, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 was pretty impressive. I could play back video smoothly and there is support for MP4, MKV, FLV, WMV, AVI, and 3GP formats. In my Netflix test, I got about five hours of streaming which is about two movies before which the battery went down. On board playback is about eight hours but you might get more or less juice than this.

The size of the display is good enough. It is light, thin, and the display is readable and bright. Outdoor viewing was fine but it isn’t good for outdoor use. This device can be used as an e-reader too as it is lighter than most other tablets out there.

There is TouchWiz UI added here and it has been improves the user’s Honeycomb OS experience. There are some simple tools that would make it easy to use. For instance, there is a tiny arrow on the bottom which gives you a widget set containing Calculator, Task Manager, and Calendar. These open up as modal windows over actual apps which run in the back ground and multitasking is made easier.

This tablet also reminded me of the older PMPs. There is not much wrong in it and can be used for travel, couch, and bedside surfing purposes.

The uncool

There are a few drawbacks though – this tablet isn’t self contained and the battery can’t be swapped. There is no additional storage support either. In my tests, I had a software failure problem in the form of YouTube; it couldn’t load as a stand alone app. The player loaded for a few seconds and then repeated.

Other than this, there is nothing in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 that would make me discourage you from buying this device. You will be stuck with AT&T all the time and the carriers can’t be switched; so you need to be wary about this. The manufacturer should have made a Wi-Fi only model too. The non AT&T 16 GB version will cost you $399 and the 32GB model will put you back by $549.

Verdict

I don’t review a lot of Android tablets because it is a jungle out there and each Android tablet is the same as the other. But if you are buying an Android tablet at all, I would recommend this device ahead of other looking at all the goodies that it has to offer. The size is unique and the tablet is well made too. Some might complain about the relatively high price and lack of card storage but then you should remember that it comes bundled with Galaxy S II phone.

You will certainly compare this tablet with Gal Tab 10 or any other smaller member of the Gal Tab device-family. There is a plethora of Android tablets out there too. But I will recommend this one more looking at its capability and strength. It is an exciting and usable tablet.

Features

• 8.9 inches display
• Android Honeycomb 3.2 OS
• 16 GB internal storage
• Rear and front facing cameras
• Free with phone for $479

Pros

• Thin and light design
• TouchWiz UI for improving user experience
• Nine hours of battery life

Cons

• No external storage
• Expensive
• LTE version comes bundled with the contract

Facebook is now looking to change all of that. They are planning to come up with their own phone which will have social networking theme at the core. Camera games, applications, and contacts will be woven inside together so that everything works in tandem with the user’s Facebook account.

Facebook has signed up with HTC for making such a phone. We have previously seen two Facebook centric phones from HTC – Salsa and ChaCha. The two companies will be making the Android phone together this time. The device has been codenamed by Facebook as Buffy. When asked, both HTC and Facebook declined to comment anything about it. There are currently 350 million active cell phone users all over the globe and they have relationships with more than 470 mobile operators all over.

Right now, every Android phone has integration along with Google’s service which has apps market, advertisements, and contacts back up through Gmail. Facebook’s proprietary service will soon replace them.

Currently, there are a lot of apps and games from the developers like Zynga which are quite popular on the social networking site and using a dedicated cell phone, Facebook will be able to cash in on this integration in a better way. They will be getting more advertising revenue and the users and developers will get 1 more screen for developing and using the services on.

Right now, this phone is going through the development process and will need 12-18 months to come out.

Nokia was asked to comment about it but they declined to do so. Stephen Elop, the Nokia Chief Executive too refused to commend on the Windows 8 tablet plans so not much is known about the whole ordeal. Elop did say that from the perspective of eco system there are some synergies and benefits between Windows Phone and Windows. He added that they are currently exploring opportunities but nothing concrete has been decided upon yet.

After that, Elop gave an interview in Financial Times pointing out more similarities between the UI in the Nokia’s Lumia phones and the upcoming Windows 8 OS. Nokia has the necessary infrastructure for making a Windows tablet too. But these synergies are not always easy. The programs that are written for one OS do not run on other and hence the app developers have to work a lot for spanning the 2 devices.

Amsellem said that the Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone was just like a BMW and also said that they will be releasing higher and lower end phones soon. The Finnish manufacturer has already released the lower end Nokia Lumia 700 but the higher end models, aren’t announced yet. No details have been shared about it either.

HP TouchSmart 520-1050y is lower end version of TouchSmart 520xt which I got in my labs for review some time ago. I found that the model had been bumped up too closely to HP TouchSmart 610 but the manufacturer sent me 520 model of $1,000 and hence it would have looked right for midrange all in one system. The TouchSmart 520 was just a in store model and the manufacturer hadn’t got the pricing right. Hence it makes good sense on paper only.

HP TouchSmart 520-1050y belongs to the same price range as the Samsung Series 7 all in one system. But the HP system feels more aggressively priced considering the Blu-ray optical drive inside. HP is also lacking an HDMI port.

The HDMI inputs make desktops more versatile and hence they are necessary. You can use the monitor of the all in one as a display for game console, cable box, or any other external device. HDMI port essentially fulfils the promise of an entertainment device that all in one make.

I’d readily trade in the Blu-ray optical drive of the HP TouchSmart 520-1050y for HDMI port and you will do the same especially if you are using computer more for digital entertainment and less for productivity tasks. The Toshiba system will also look tempting due to the presence of HDMI port. It is better to purchase HP TouchSmart 520-1050y directly from HP.com and then configure it to have HDMI port for $50 more. The price will be the same as the retail model.

Value confusion here is frustrating because the performance of the system is quite decent considering the price. In my tests, the HP TouchSmart 520-1050y was fast and in most of the cases, it was faster than the competing Toshiba and Samsung systems. I am not saying that performance is the only thing that matters in all in one sales especially the models that are designed for home entertainment. Still it doesn’t look unfair to demand some baseline capabilities and my tests showed that the HP system did fulfill all the expectations.

I am disappointed at the fact that the manufacturer chose not to put an HDMI port here but HP should still be praised for putting in three USB 3.0 ports. These super fast ports are now becoming more common on the main stream PCs and there will be time when the consumers will ask for USB 3.0 in a system having $1,000 price range.

In terms of other inputs, the HP TouchSmart 520-1050y comes with older USB 2.0 ports and there are analog audio jacks too. One feature that stands out other than the USB 3.0 ports on this machine is the TV tuner. A lot will say that TV tuners aren’t really mouth watering but at least you get some interactivity with media world that is not based on PC.

HP TouchSmart 520-1050y also comes with HP TouchSmart 5.0 touch software suite. The manufacturer has put in more resources in the PC based touch experience than other vendors and this is seen in over all polish  and the breadth of the suite.

The latest TouchSmart Suite version isn’t just a stand alone software environment now. It now serves as background to the main Windows desktop when you are launching TouchSmart Magic Canvas app. Resulting experience will be a bit cluttered if you are pining lot of virtual notes to screen close to the desktop icons. However, if you wish to use this as touch driven entertainment center then you will need to forgive its visual mess due to polished look and the feel of HP touch experience. There are 12 touch based programs for Web browsing, media viewing, etc.

Apart from the solid performance of this PC, the manufacturer should also be praised for the power efficiency that it has achieved here. In my tests, the HP TouchSmart 520-1050y was better than the Samsung Series 7 all-in-one in almost all tests and the power consumption was less too. The annual difference will be around $3 or 25 cents per month. This may not seem a lot but $3 is enough to fetch you a cup of coffee and bagel from New York food truck.

The manufacturer is giving a one year warranty of parts and labor on this system. There is also 24-7 toll free support over the phone and the Website has plenty of different resources that you can use for troubleshooting.

To conclude, I would say that I have complained about HP for having a product line up that is confusing. They have multiple versions for each core model and there are also inconsistencies in the retail and online value and pricing. HP TouchSmart 520-1050y isn’t really a bad system. In fact, it is the most competitive one next to the similar all in ones in its range of price. But I can’t really recommend this system when there is an exact configuration available on the manufacturer’s Website for $50 less.

Pros

The HP TouchSmart 520-1050y has a really good performance for the price that it is offered for and it has all the features that you’d want in an all-in-one.

Cons

There is no HDMI port and this might be a deal breaker for many who are looking for an all-in-one for entertainment purposes. Worse is the fact that you get the same model for $50 less on the manufacturer’s Website.

Verdict

HP is still inconsistent with their pricing of their systems but other than that, the HP TouchSmart 520-1050y is still a good all in one and it is affordable too.

Specifications

• Personal computer
• Recommended for home use
• Form factor – All-in-one
• Built-in devices – Stereo speakers, display
• Width – 22.8 inches, depth – 8.5 inches, height – 18 inches, weight – 25.4 lbs
• Processor – Intel 2nd Gen Core i5 i5-2400S, 2.5 GHz, quad-core technology
• Chipset – Intel H61 Express
• Cache memory – 6 MB
• RAM – 6 GB (Installed), 8 GB (max), DDR3 SDRAM
• Memory speed – 1333 MHz
• Memory specification compliance – PC3-10600
• Form factor – SO DIMM 204-pin
• Storage controller – 1 x Serial ATA – Integrated
• Controller interface – Serial ATA-300
• Hard drive – 1 TB, 1 x Standard – Serial ATA-300 at 7,200 rpm
• Optical storage – serial ATA DVD±RW / DVD-RAM / BD-ROM
• Read speed -  24x (CD) / 4x (BD) / 8x (DVD)
• Write speed – 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD±R DL) / 8x (DVD±R)
• Rewrite speed – 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD+RW) / / 6x (DVD-RW) 5x (DVD-RAM)
• Disc labeling technology – LightScribe technology
• 23 inches TFT LCD display
• 1,920×1,080 pixels full HD resolution
• 16:9 image aspect ratio
• 5 ms response time
• 250 cd/m2 image brightness
• 1000:1 image contrast ratio
• Intel HD Graphics 2000 dynamic video memory technology
• 1696 MB video memory
• 256 MB graphics memory

Interfaces

4 x Hi-Speed USB – 4 pin USB Type A, 1 x Audio – Line-out (center/subwoofer) – Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 1 x Headphones – Output – Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 1 x Network – Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T – RJ-45, 2 x SuperSpeed USB 3.0 – 9 pin USB Type A, 1 x Remote control, 1 x TV antenna, Included accessories – remote control

Features

802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN, Camera, Bluetooth

OS Provided

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition

Microsoft Office Preloaded -  Includes pre-loaded image of the select Microsoft Office 2010 suites. Buy an Office 2010 Product Key Card or a disc for activating the preloaded software on the PC.

Software

HP Support Assistant, HP TouchSmart 5.0, HP Setup Manager, Norton Internet Security 2012 (60 days subscription), HP Linkup, Windows Live Essentials 2011, HP Movie Store powered by RoxioNow.

The main difference between the Samsung Transform Ultra and standard Android phones is Mobile ID. There is a gallery onboard which lets you choose more ‘ID packs’ and each of them come with their congregation of widgets, wallpapers, apps, and ring tones which the developer has chosen to represent the theme. For example, the Social Networking ID Pack  gives you shortcuts and apps for yapping on the different networks. You can also load some extra ID packs and then swap between them like profiles when you wish to switch the gears.

Mobile ID pack takes some time to load and hence you will have to be patient while exploring Mobile ID feature. Sprint engineers have increased the speed of this feature as compared to the earlier versions and the initial download process too is smoothed out. You will find that switching and downloading the IDs is much faster than what it was a year ago when this feature first came out.

Mobile ID is the main feature of the Samsung Transform Ultra but even without it, you do get a typical Android cell phone. You can sign in with Google account for importing the Google contacts online and from SD card. You will be able to store as many contacts as you want as long as you aren’t running out of space. Let me tell you that the space is really big, I put in a lot of contacts inside and never even came close to running out. A single entry can hold multiple numbers, Web sites, e-mail addresses, notes, etc. There are sorting options along with ability for linking the boxes for the Web mail, Microsoft Exchange, and Google accounts in ‘Email’ app. Let me warn you here that sometimes Google confuses few contacts and their pictures while syncing.

Samsung Ultra Transform also gives you Google services access. You get Books, Google Search, Gmail, Latitude, Navigations, Maps, YouTube, Talk, and Places. There are tools and apps for personal organization like calendar (for syncing with Google), calculator, clock along with alarm clock, voice dialer, file tree, and shortcuts to voice mail and voice search.

Kyocera Brio full QWERTY keyboard has four rows and is quite compact. People having larger hands will call it small. Buttons here are ridged and hence your fingers will have something to grip. During my tests, I could hit the buttons with my nails easily and typing too was fine. However, it was a bit slower as compared to the phones having spring back keys. My fingers slipped occasionally and this got me frustrated. On the bright side, there is a buttons emoticons, .com and for jumping to call history.

The external controls of the Kyocera Brio are all located on the left side. There is a camera button, narrow and short volume rocker button, (the design of this button is bad), and a microUSB charging port. The 2.5 mm headphones jack is located on the top. I would have liked a 3.5 mm headphones jack but this isn’t a deal breaker considering there is no music player on board. The rear end has a 1.3 megapixels camera and the microSd card slot is located below the back cover. This slot can accept maximum of 32 GB cards. Above the phone’s display, there is red indicator light.

Kyocera Brio has a 600 entry limit phone book which is a bit disappointing because most phones in this price range have a 1,000 entry limit phone books. Again, the lower capacity isn’t really disappointing for an entry level phone like this. A single entry can hold e-mail address, multiple phone numbers, URL, IM, notes, address, and birthday reminder. There are 37 ringtones preloaded on to the phone which means you get plenty to choose from. Also, you can download more if you want to. There is a silent mode which prevents the phone from ringing when you are in a meeting or just don’t want to be disturbed.

If you are an Apple fanatic then you will be familiar with long wait in the queues outside the iStores when the iPhone 4S started selling. And if you have stood in line and are among the very few lucky ones who managed to grab the newly launched iPhone 4S, then here are top ten iPhone 4S apps that you must have.

The apps that we’ve listed in our list belongs to all the category including the social network, movies and music section, games and utility, productivity apps, which will make your iPhone 4S more prevailing, productive and fun to use.

Songza:

The first app in our list is from the music section and is “Songza.” This app has playlists for almost everything and almost for everyone. Songza is absolutely free, and the best thing here is that you won’t have to listen to any advertisements and neither will you have to abide any monthly listening limits. You could stream as many original playlists from music specialists as possible. The Songza also comes with a touch of social networking, and hence you can share your playlists with friends on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Cards :

This new-fangled Cards application from Apple allows you to develop and mail nicely crafter cards, personalized with your own photos and text straight from your iPod touch or iPhone.

Turntable.fm :

The Turntable.fm app allows you to play music with your friends or acquaintances online. Every DJ will be given one turn for playing a song, and the complete virtual room could listen to the song. You either could give your opinions on the song, whether you liked it or not, and the best thing here is that if any song gets too many bad votes, it will get skipped.

Pandora Radio :

The Pandora Radio app is users own free tailored radio, which now is available for streaming music on iPhone or iPad. All you need to do is start with the name of one of your favorite song, artist or any other thing and the Pandora Radio will create a “station” for that and for music like that and will play the music.

iTunes Movie Trailers :

The iTunes Movie Trailers app brings all the latest and exclusive trailers in high definition for you. You can use this application for browsing trails, clips, movie previews, cast for the major blockbusters and imminent movies of Hollywood or any other cinemas.

IMDb Movies & TV :

The IMDb Movies & TV offers the biggest collection of TV, movie and celebrity information. We aim to list every single detail about all movies and TV shows that have ever been made, including information such as who acted in it, the plot, trailers, user ratings, reviews, photos, goofs, quotes, a lot more and trivia.

Facebook :

The Facebook app for iPhone allows you to stay connected and share information with your friends on the move. You can start a chat, and stay updated with the status updates and photos. You even can upload photos, search for a phone number straight from your iPhone.

Twitter :

The Twitter app allows you to follow your interest, get instant updates from your friends, industry specialists, preferred celebrities and what’s going on around the world. You even will get short bursts of sensible information from the Twitter app for the iPhone.

Foursquare:

The Foursquare app allows you to explain the world around you. It allows you to stay in touch with the world around you, get the insider tips and open rewards and discounts. You could tell you friends where you actually are, and could share pictures, could get the comments and could do a lot of other stuff as well.

Instagram:

The Instagram allows you to pick from one of the many gorgeous filtered gist or tilt-shift haze for giving a brand new look to your mobile pictures. The Instagram app allows you to change every regular moment into a work of art.

So these are the top ten iPhone 4S apps. Do let us know what do you think of our compilation and also if there’s any app that you would like to be listed here.