Until recently, I have used in-ear earphones to listen to music, but these have grown increasinly annoying as wires always tangle and at times are impractical, especially when exercising. Therefore, I decided to buy a pair of wireless headphones. I thought to myself that it may be wise to get some Bluetooth headphones as these could be used on my MacBook Pro without plugging in an adapter.

Logitech Freepulse headphones fitted the bill. It utilises Bluetooth, but comes with a 3.5mm jack (standard headphone) transmitter, which allows me to turn nearly any audio into Bluetooth-transmitted audio. I have plugged this transmitter into everything ranging from my TV to my DS, most importantly, to my iPod.

Charger

The headphones and transmitter are powered by a non-removable, rechargeable battery. You get a mains power adapter to do this, which isn’t a universal one. I find this a little annoying, because it makes the headphones impractical for long journeys where they may run out of charge.

A mini-USB power socket on the headphones and transmitter would be useful, as it would allow everything to be charged by laptops or ‘emergency’ chargers.

Sound quality

THe sound quality seems to be quite good, although it is better when the transmitter is used than a direct AD2P connection. Using a AD2P connection from my laptop to the headphones, the sound quality, quite frankly, is terrible. On the other hand, if I use the transmitter, there is little difference to any other half-decent pair ear or headphones.

Sound quality is completely satisfactory, although it gets pretty poor at higher volumes.

Connection quality

The advertised 10 meters is hugely unrealistic. I often struggle at 5 meters and if I’m walking fastly, it can be a bit unreliable.

Generally, connection quality doesn’t pose too great a problem as any unreliability at very short ranges is rare and so are the circumstances where you would use them over a distance larger than a few meters.

The instruction manual provides no instructions on how to pair the headphones with devices besides the transmitter, but it can be done by holding the power button on the headphones for 15 seconds, until the LED turns into a flashing blue and red which indicates that it’s discoverable.

Design

The headphones, in my opinion, are quite attractive and buttons are well-hidden. It also has invovative volume control, which involves a very subtle up and down button underneath one of the phones.

The band which holds it together, unusually for headphones, goes behind the neck. This definitely looks odd, but it’s much more comfortable.

Other points

The ‘templates’ designed to secure the transmitter to a variety of devices aren’t shaped to fit current generation iPods. Whilst the transmitter still works fine, mine fell out once and the jack actually bent in my pocket. Logitech were fantastic about this and replaced the transmitter, but that was obviously an inconvenience and a small expense as I had to airmail it to their European support representatives in Germany.

Even if these aren’t the world’s best headphones, the convenience of the Bluetooth is fantastic.

Price

The headphones and transmitter cost about £50.

The LG Venus KF600, provided to me by LG Blog, is a fairly new slider phone which is partially touchscreen. Unlike the LG Viewty, there are two screen (one of which, the InteractPad is touchscreen) and numbers and letters are inputted through a standard keypad.

The phone’s key feature, the InteractPad, replaces traditional navigation keys and updates depending what you want to do. When the phone is shut, no buttons are visible because it is a screen which will power off!

For example, if you wish to make a call, you will have buttons such as mute, in addition to the hard connect and disconnect on the keypad, but if you wish to use it as a camera, the screen will change to having camera buttons (zoom in etc). For bog-standard Java applications (the phone supports Java MIDP 2.0), like Google Mail, you will be given a fairly boring set of up, down, confirm and cancel buttons. I wonder if LG provide an SDK for Java developers to create interactive applications considering the default games interactively utilise the InteractPad. Quite impressively, this screen has a resolution of 176×240px in addition to the phone’s main 240×320px screen.

The phone is 2.5G, using EDGE which compared to 3G technologies is slow with a maximum of about 240kbps. Whilst I understand this is probably for cost cutting (or battery conserving) purposes I do think it’s a disappointment which may put certain users off. To be honest though, I have yet to meet anyone besides myself who requires 3G but it would be nice to support features such as video calling etc, which EDGE cannot.

I am not a massive fan of the phone’s browser but it seems somewhat fit for purpose (it does not like sites like Gmail due to their SSL (it doesn’t recognise the certificate authority) and provides no option to ‘cancel’ on sites with ‘questionable’ certificates). Personally, I would suggest the free Opera Mini.

The phone is light but the exterior, especially the battery cover, feels like it’s cheap plastic. One design feature I do like, though, is the fact the battery does not have to be removed to change the SIM card.

For the average consumer, features such as the phone’s camera and MP3 will be more important. The phone has a fairly good camera, with a resolution of 3 megapixels and a ‘flash’ (not a flash which actually flashes but one which simply acts as a light!) in addition to an image stabiliser. It is also capable of video recording.

The phone’s MP3 player can handle MP3s, WMAs, AACs and AAC+s. It also possesses an FM radio which requires you use their earphones which come with it (you’ve guessed it, the phone doesn’t have a nice, standard 35mm jack!).

The phone’s built in memory of 25MB is expandable using a MicroSD (TransFlash) card.You can easily buy a 1GB MicroSD memory card on Amazon for £5. You can also use this as mass storage by plugging it into a PC.

Call quality is absolutely fine and so is battery life, the phone having survived 48 hours with a GPRS connection (which was actually used for around 2 hours).

The phone supports Bluetooth, but not IrDA or WLAN, MMS and of course SMS. The phone also comes with some really nice themes, design by Keith Haring, which affect both the main screen and touchscreen.

What comes in the box?

• A pouch for the phone
• Manuals
• A CD
• A USB lead
• A mains adaptar
• Earphones
• A battery

Advantages of phone

• Half-way between touchscreen and a traditional phone
• Good camera
• Fairly good battery life
• Compact
• Fashionable
• Good interface and menu systems (despite what people may say about G!)

Disadvantages

• No 3G
• No IrDA
• No ‘proper’ flash
• Proprietary earphones
• Not cheap

An unlocked, SIM free KF600 will cost you £220. It is available on O2 and Orange 18 month contracts, being free of charge on O2 if you are on a £30/month contract.

Tags: lg venus, lg kf600, kf600, phones, mobile phone, lg, cell phones

At LG Blog

3G is becoming quite common in the UK and mobile phone networks are starting to take advantage of it by offering fairly cheap 3G modems for laptops. 3 provide a good value mobile broadband service, starting at £10 with total bandwidth capped at 1GB. This price plan comes with the choice of three modems, which are free on an 18 month contract, so 3mobilebuzz sent me a Huawei E169G to review but I imagine most dongles (what 3 like to cal the modems) are the same.

Setting up the dongle could not be any more simple. All I had to do was open the box, grab the dongle (which is about the size of a stick-shaped MP3 player), place the SIM card into it and put it into my laptop’s USB port. Christian Lindholm had more difficulty having to carve the dongle to fit in his MacBook Air but then someone pointed out that it comes with a USB extension lead so it will fit in any port!

As soon as I plugged it in, OS X opened an application (which is stored on a small piece of memory on the dongle) and getting online was as simple as clicking ‘connect’ and it immediately installed drivers and the relevant network interfaces.

In fact, the only issues I have had is getting a signal but when a 3 signal is not available, it seems to be possible to roam onto other networks. However, most places have a 3 signal but sadly my house, the lodge in the middle of a forest I was staying in over the weekend or my local pub do not have a reliable one. With a little strategic searching (moving out of forests, for example) and a little luck, you can expect an extremely strong signal and I was easily getting 1Mbps. 3 say that 85% of Britons live in HSDPA (fast 3G) areas, but it definitely isn’t 85% of Britain area wise! Looking at the map of 3’s website, everywhere in my town and most of the neighbouring towns are covered by Turbo just my estate is in a blackspot which can only achieve 2G!

You also receive free international roaming in Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy and Sweden.

Mobile broadband definitely increases your productivity. The fact you can work in a pub without paying extortionate amounts for WiFi, or on a train or in the Sports Bar at Center Parcs means that time where you would normally be without an internet connection (or an extremely slow phone connection) is now time were you have broadband! Naturally, you can use your internet for YouTube (I wouldn’t advise that though just because of the caps!), checking your emails, looking something up on Wikipedia or chatting over MSN, Yahoo! or Skype if you felt so inclined!

If it’s plug and play on a Mac, I would also expect it to plug and play on PCs because that is what most people use!

Price plans are cheap, starting at £10 a month as mentioned above for 1GB, £15 for 3GB or £25 for 7GB. If you are already a 3 customer, you can receive 50% of these prices. 3 has some other price plans which are well suited for bloggers such as the £25 Texter plan which comes with unlimited texts (fantastic for updating Twitter!) and 500 minutes as well as free Skype calls and free instant messaging! Naturally, if you sign up to a Texter plan you get a half-price mobile broadband plan (£5 a month is a worthwhile extra!).

Tags: 3, 3g, mobile broadband, huawei e169g, 3 mobile broadband

Earlier this week, I was hacked. Fortunately, I lost very little data (due to the fact my host seems to do daily back-ups) but I experienced significant amount of downtime.

It was not only my site which was hacked; the whole box was brought down. Even though my site was back-up in no time, my host/the hackers brought the box down for about 24 hours (I guess to restore back-ups and apply patches or to cause more havoc!).

What annoyed me most is the fact my host’s server status tool lied to me by telling me everything was functioning perfectly well. Also, live support would not respond to me and my support ticket took about 48 hours to be answered.

I only managed to figure out what was going on through my host’s forums, and only through what other users said (the host didn’t comment at the time).

When I saw my site was down, I obviously wanted to know what was happening and, rather pathetically, the fact that my website was down distracted me for a whole day! I really do wish they were more transparent <sighs>.

I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of backing up but I strongly urge you to back-up in case your host don’t back up as frequently as mine.

Oh, and by the way, hackers can’t speak English very well. I tried to ask them about what they did on MSN and they gave me very poorly worded responses before blocking me!

Tags: hacking, security

The guys from 3mobilebuzz kindly sent me 2 3 Skypephones on loan for a month in order for me to review them. In case you don’t know the 3 Skypephone is a mobile telephone which utilises the 3G data transfer the British network 3 offer to allow for VoIP to be used on a mobile phone, providing the user with free Skype-to-Skype calls. Skypephones are also available in several other nations worldwide.

What’s in the box?

• MiniUSB charger
• Lots of documentation
• 256MB MicroSD card (depends on nation)
• Phone, of course
• Headphones
• USB lead

Skype!

The phones allows mobile phone users to phone and receive calls (and messages) from other Skype users free of charge, providing Skype – which is pre-installed on the phone – is being used. So, not only could you phone computers but you could phone other Skypephones or smartphones with Skype installed free of charge (almost!). Naturally, all of this requires a fast internet connection so UMTS is used… sadly as most Brits will know, we have great difficulty in getting a 3G signal anywhere. When no UMTS is available, the phone will switch to GSM (I don’t know if Skype works under GSM!)

Skypephones offer good audio quality for Skype calls (better than my laptop’s!) and offers conference calling but sadly lack SkypeOut, Skype Video Calling and SkypeIn abilities (to make calls to normal phones, you must pay normal 3 rates).

Connectivity & Internet

As mentioned above, the Skypephone uses a 3G signal (a UMTS one, to be precise). UMTS is one of the slower 3G protocols and the Skypephone does not utilise the faster HSDPA protocol.

The browser offered by the Skypephone is pretty standard but it supports J2ME so you could install Opera Mini if you wanted to.

Also, you can use the Skypephone for media. 3 have quite a good music download store and you can pay 49p to listen to online radio for 24 hours. I might be mistaken, but I think BBC radio is free.

The phone supports Windows Live Messenger which, much like Skype, is free providing you top your phone up.

Unlimited monthly Internet will cost you 50p for one day’s access, £2.50 for a week’s, £5 for a month or alternatively £1/megabyte.

Skypephones also support Bluetooth and it seems pretty average. I’ve never been a Bluetooth fan, too many services for my liking, and have always preferred IrDA (infrared)… something which the Skypephone (and indeed my laptop) lacks!

The phone has a mini USB port so the odds are you’ll already have a cable to connect it to your PC!

Camera

The Skypephone has a 2 megapixel camera. It’s reasonable but is no Viewty! it doesn’t seem to have many anti-shake features, as you can see below! Also, there’s no flash (not even an LED light which claims to be one!).

Below is a photo (scaled down, the link will take you to the full-size image), which you can easily send via MMS, email, Bluetooth or Printer immediately after taking a photo. I sent it via Bluetooth!

The Skypephone, unusually for a 3G phone, possesses only 1 camera. Most 3G phones have 2 cameras: a low-res one on the front for video calling and a high-res one on the back for taking photos.

To keep costs down, the Skypephone lacks a front camera which isn’t a big loss considering video calling is pretty much unused although it will prove annoying if it ever takes off. The phone does permit 3G video calls using the back camera, and there’s a mirror next to this camera so you can see yourself.

Aesthetics

The phone’s don’t look particularly amazing, to be frank. The have a fairly simple design (not a slide/flip up), are available in several colours (white with blue, white with pink and black) and have a distinctive ‘Skype’ button which confusingly launches Skype but sometimes acts as a select key! The phone isn’t tiny either, but it isn’t massive, weighing in at around 85g and measuring 100×44x13.6mm!

On the back of the phone, there’s 3 and Skype branding.

Pricing

The phone cost £50 on pay as you go, requiring a £10 monthly top-up for Skype and/or MSN, and the cost on contract will probably be free. 4000 Skype minutes come free with that £10! If you buy two phones, a £10 discount is offered (2 phones cost £100!).

The rest

The phone and text facility is average. The phone supports T9, but in no way has any innovation on the phone/text end. Voice call quality seemed good enough but I always find it hard to judge!

Contacts nicely integrates normal numbers and Skype, keeping people together instead of multiple contact entries!

Conclusion

It would be superb if Skypephones were available on other networks because 3 lack some key features, such as top-up cards, and have inferior signal strength but as the company grows I am sure this will too.

Overall, the 3 Skypephone is a great idea and for the cost you simply cannot go wrong! It’s probably cheaper than a Skype WiFi phone!

Tags: phones, 3skypephone, skypephone, 3 skypephone, 3, three, mobile phones, skype, voip