Alisa's blog

This is a topic causing a lot of debate in homes in America. When is the right time to gift your children a cell phone. When will they be mature enough to handle it? After September 11, many parents feel that their children will be safer carrying a cell phone. In fact there are many cell phone plans that you can choose specially for your children. Like the prepaid phone plan that start from as low as $50 and limit the amount of calls and texts made.

Cell phone service providers have started launching special cell phone plans for children. Like T-Mobile's family allowance plan that lets you set limits for minutes, messages and downloads on your child's phone. You can also keep track of your child's location by simply logging on to a computer, using Sprint's Family Locator plan or Verizon's Chaperone plan. Cell phones are also a huge distraction during school hours. So you can compare cell phone plans of various service providers and ask them about your ability to shut down phone service for certain hours or keep track of the actual numbers that your child talks to over the phone.

While blogosphere is full of debates and discussions on what the users liked and disliked in the new iPhone 3G, British security agencies are worried about the possible security threat that the iPhones may pose. Criminals can use devices like the iPhone 3G to remotely destroy incriminating evidence says the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office Digital Forensics unit.

Since the iPhone 3G is a new gadget, it is difficult to track the device. Just like the Blackberry, the iPhone 3G may also be used to carry out remote deletion according to the Digital Forensics unit. The unit has already begun measures to make sure that the remote deletion feature is not being exploited

Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon then. In the case of the now popular new girl, it is the third condition.? After a British buyer of the new iPhone posted three pictures of the girl in a website stating that those came as default pictures with his new iPhone. The pictures are believed to be sample photos shot at the Chinese factory of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple. The message sparked off a spate of discussions that saw participation from all corners of the globe.

The debates ranged from the age of the girl, who appeared too young to work, reinforcing the idea of Chinese sweatshops to whether the girl was fired for the goofup that happened, to rating the girl?s cuteness quotient. Foxconn jumped to clarify that it was a ?beautiful mistake? (don?t know what that means) and also that the girl will not be fired for what happened. Last heard, the girl was pleading for some privacy.

In case you’re one of lucky ones to have gotten away without getting pulled over for not using a hands free device while calling and driving in California, New Jersey, New York and other states, now may be a good time to invest in a Bluetooth headset for your cell phone.

We've done some hands-on testing of the most popular new Bluetooth headsets and came to the conclusion that although none of these devices works flawlessly they work well enough to consider spending the $80 - $100 to make them part of your gadget collection.

Top Three Headsets
We singled out the BlueAnt Z9i, Aliph’s Jawbone 2, and Plantronics' Discovery 925 because we consider them among the very best Bluetooth headsets on the market.

All three units had similar weaknesses; occasional pairing issues, audio glitches, and ergonomic difficulties. In other words, we feel Bluetooth headsets still have room for improvement. In general though, the out of the box experience was good, pairing worked most of the time although in some case we had to reset the headset to get everything set up just right for pairing to take place.

For the most part, call quality was quite adequate although some callers complained occasionally about the audio quality. One common complaint among our testers was that the auto pairing seemed to work sometimes and not others. One time your phone would answer with the headset connected and another with it off. Battery life was adequate for normal use and all three recharged pretty fast.

BlueAnt Z9i
The Z9i was the lightest of the three, almost feather light. It was the one we noticed least hanging off our ears although you have to be careful to fit the earloop just right.  The large multifunction button was easy to locate and easy to use although a problem with almost all phones we’ve tried is remembering which buttons do what. Quality of calls was very good although don’t expect Jawbone caliber noise cancellation.

Aliph Jawbone 2
The Aliph Jawbone 2 is the second generation Jawbone. The first Jawbone was the hands down favorite among Bluetooth headset connoisseurs however the first thing most owners did was replace the earpiece with a Jabra molded ear piece. The Jawbone 2 is smaller, lighter, and feels better in your ear although you still know it's there unlike the BlueAnt Z9i which is so light you almost forget you're wearing it. The Jawbone 2 was still the winner for noise canceling audio quality but not by much.

Plantronics Discovery 925
If you want to minimize the somewhat techie look that the Jawbone 2 adds then consider the stylish Plantronics Discovery 925. It almost looks like a piece of jewelry and therefore might be even more popular with women. It comes in colors too. The Discovery 925 feels very comfortable in your ear and doesn't require an earloop like the BlueAnt or Jawbone. Sound quality is excellent and the buttons are easy to use.

Corded headset
For the most consistent connectivity and call quality you can’t beat a corded headset. Yes, the wire can get in your way but the mute button is easy to find.

Bluetooth Car and Conference Phone
BlueAnt makes a reasonably price Bluetooth device called the Supertooth 3 handsfree speakerphone that mounts to your visor when used as a hands free car phone or it can sit on a table and be used as a conference phone. It has big easy to find buttons, and friendly voice commands for ease of use.

The Nokia N73, even though being a mid range cell phone, comes with a host of exciting features. The versatile 3.2 megapixel camera is equipped with a Carl Zeiss lens. The mechanical shutter and advanced auto focus diminish movement distortion, rendering photos that have even been shot in low light conditions sharper. The camera is equipped with a 20X digital zoom.

The photos, which are of print quality, can be viewed on a 2.4 inch screen. The display resolution is 240 X 320 pixels. One can get excellent print quality photos up to 10” x 8”. Organizing and sharing of photos is simplified by an intelligent photo gallery. Memories are well organized and quickly accessible.

‘Life Blog’ helps to keep track of where and when one spent one’s memorable events. The N73 comes with a digital music player equipped with stereo speakers. The player is mp3 compatible. Music listeners can also tune in to FM Radio. Transferring tracks to the device is made very easy through the Nokia Music Manager in the Nokia PC Suite. Videos and games can be directly downloaded and streamed to the device. These can be stored on the device or with mini SD cards.

MS Outlook Express, MS Outlook, Lotus Organizer 5.0 & 6.0 and Lotus Notes 5.0 are other important features of the N73.

The N73 enables one to combine both work and play, made possible by its latest applications and services. The N73 can be connected to a PC or other wireless device through Bluetooth/infrared/USB. The device possesses anti-virus protection. The N73 is available in both the GSM and WCDMA category.

New types of phones are continuously being added to the cell phone market, that too with new features. The options range from sliders like T-Mobile's Sidekick that offer big keyboards that slide out from under big displays. There are Smartphones with QWERTY keyboards and high resolution displays, and now a new generation of phones is offering many of the features found on smartphones along with cameras with lots of mega pixels, video recording, and editing tools.

Sony Ericsson C905
Although the Sony Ericsson C905 has many high end features found in smartphones it is being categorized as a camera phone. It has an 8.1 MP camera along with some cool photo features like face detection, Smart Contrast that balances light and dark areas, image stabilization, BestPic that takes seven pictures in fast succession(you keep the best), and a Xenon flash. It has a built in accelerometer so photos change to landscape mode when you turn the camera and A-GPS so photos can be “geotagged.”

You get all the latest connectivity options like 3G, GSM, A2DP Bluetooth (stereo), WiFi (with DLNA for home media sharing), USB 2.0, and Exchange ActiveSync. It has a 2.4 inch QVGA (320 x 240) display, a TV-out port for watching pictures on your TV, an FM radio with RDS (Radio Data System for station ID and track/artist info) and a megabass audio equalizer preset for better audio.

Samsung INNOV8 i8510
The Samsung INNOV8 i8510 is a camera phone with an 8 MP autofocus camera that includes image stabilization and face, smile, and blink detection. It will record QVGA (320 x 240) video at 120 fps or VGA at 30fps with a full editing suite on the phone which makes this device more like a camcorder phone than a camera phone. It supports WiFi, 3G Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and dual-band WCDMA (900/2100MHz) and runs Symbian 9.3 S60 3rd Edition FP2. It has a big 2.8 inch display, built-in A-GPS, accelerometer and has 16 GB internal storage with microSD card slot for more storage.

Motorola Motozine
Motorola is about to launch the Motorola Motozine ZN5 in China with a 5 MP camera “powered by” Kodak. It will have all the standard smartphone features minus a QWERTY keyboard and 3G connectivity. This phone is expected to be followed by the, rumored, Motorola Motozine ZN12 which could hit the stores around October 2008. It is also rumored to have an 8 MP Kodak camera, a big 2.8 640x480 display and uses an NVidia chip to help with video & 3D graphics. Some say this is a make or break cell phone for Motorola who needs another hit product in this market.

LG KU990 Viewty
The LG KU990 Viewty is an old timer by today's standards having been out for almost a year. It only has a measly 5.1 MP camera but some very impressive features. The camera uses a high quality Schneider-Kreuznach lens with autofocus, a Xenon flash, and a SmartLight feature that improves pictures taken in low light. It also includes a secondary front facing video camera for video conferencing.

The video camera takes QVGA (320 x 240) video at 120 fps which can be played back at 15 fps for slo-motion and also takes VGA resolution clips at 30 fps. A second front-facing camera can be used for video calls. It uses Haptic technology which has been used in game controllers to simulate resistance and motion, to provide added sensory feedback for some operations. The list goes on including a 240 X 400 pixels, 3 inch touch screen, FM radio and 3G connectivity. Missing is WiFi, GPS, and an accelerometer.