Sony Ericsson T707/Equinox

Sony Ericsson T707 a.k.a. T-Mobile Equinox
Sony brings this new phone (not that new as it came out in march or june i think) , the phone is really confortable and it does look classy but under that shinny look there some thing that could had been done better, this is my review for this month.

Style
the phone does look flashy and althought it can be considered a girls phone since it was created and labeled as "The favorite toy of tennis player Maria Sharapova" i can tell that the blue and black version (i own a black version) of the phone can be used safely by man , if you like pink well...is totally up to you. the keys of the phone are a little out of place , rounded keys with a square phone , how terrible is that? but the keys are REALLY comfortable , they are not hard and they are big enough . in the exterior of the phone is the charger port that works also as the headphone jack, Volume keys on the right side of the phone are useful if you are on the GO listening to some music. This phone does not use a regular SD card rather than that Sony incorporates it's own card branding, yes..for this phone you need a MICRO MEMORY STICK M2 with support up to 16 GB. not bad for a small phone. the phone have good reception and voice quality i can't complaint about that , my network is T-Mobile and i haven't had any issue using this phone (i got it way before T-Mobile launch it here on the US as Equinox). overall the design of the phone is nice, the idea of the pulsating light on the exterior of the phone is really eyecatchy but BE AWARE , you can't change the color of the pulsating light . overall on design i give it 5/5

Specs
and here are the specs for the European version

2G : Supports 850/900/1800/1900
3G: Supports HSDPA 850/1900/2100
Dimensions: 93*50*14.1 mm
Display: 240*320(main)and 36*128 (external display)
Storage: internal storage of 100 mb and external storage with MICRO M2 memory stick up to 16 GB.
Camera: 3.2 megapixels , no flash (that sucks)
Browser : i think the browser is an Access NetFront if im not confused but you can always install Opera mini
as a bonus you will get with the phone the following features:
Radio : the headphone jack is used as an antenna
Games :download games from any website or the sony ericsson store

Usability
the phone comes with a set of apps preinstalled so you can play around , some games are just demo and apps like YouTube need to be open so you can accept the agreement and use the app
a useful feature is the bar code reader (read my N95 review). the standard browser is not a great thing so i will go with Opera Mini as Skyfire can't be installed on this phone. The Media functions like music , videos , RSS feeds can be access from the Media menu (the menu reminds me to the PSP menu) , the music player is easy to use , while the phone is closed you can use see track of the song being played on the external display. Overall is not a complicated phone , you just need to navigate away to different options but is not difficult to use. in usability i could give it a 5 but since there is not much to do with this phone besides talk, txt and some java games i give it a 3

Picture from fanklub.se showing the pulsating light effect on the T707

with this new phone Sony Ericsson is showing that a phone can be good looking and easy to use , despite the lacks of flash and other features , the SE T707 does a really good job incorporating as much as it can on it's small size.

my final veredict is : 3.5 out of five

it could have been better with a slightly bigger screen and a better design key.

N95 , still a good phone

ok so i finally decided to get an N95 , i heard from many people that it's a good phone i didn't want to believe, as many grandparents used to say "don't judge a book for it's cover" , i have to say the phone is great and it can compete with japanese keitais (N95 available on Japan as Softbank X02NK) , so let's begin with the review:



Size and Weight
This is a mixed review , although the phone is bulky is not heavy and that's great, many people could complaint if you are not used to bulky phones (japanese phones are) but have on mind you have a 5MP camera in the back with GPS and WIFI functions , the phone weights 120G , it does look huge on pictures but you would be really surprised to see how small the phone is. The dimensions of the phone are 99 x 53 x 21 mm.


Features
this he part where the phone does not have to envy anything from other phones(Specially the iPhone). Deep into the phone there is a robust set of apps for the one on the go, My favorite one is bar code reader, i can just scan the bar code (matrix, QR code or regular UPC) ad it will take me to a wesite of where the product comes from and also it will tell you any information stored on the barcode, Adobe Reader LE is always useful , i can read PDF files on the go (really useful) and also word , excel and power point documents with QuickOffice. the phone comes with it's own browser but if you are like me who wants to have the full browsing experience anywhere then install Skyfire , it will even let you load Flash content on your phone (take that Apple with misleading campaigns about Safari and full experience browsing). The Music Player is simple and easy to use and i haven't had any issues with the music player so far, the phone also have Radio capability , i don't listen to radio that much since i don't want to hear reggaetton or hip hop or rap . I haven't been able to use features like OVI store and N GAGE since i don't want to spend money as im broke right now(really broke) but ill let you guys know if i try them someday. the camera is good but sometimes it can be a real pain to take a good quality picture even if the phone have a 5 MP camera but that also depends on conditions like sunny , fog etc etc. as you can see there is nothing i would envy with this phone....except of course a way to use it as a credit card like many people in Asia and Japan does. The GPS function of the phone ...for that you have to buy s subscription from Nokia or at least thats what my phone said but i know from several people that you can share the GPS function of the phone with a TOM TOM GPS but i will confirm that soon.Video call is not possible in the US so im missing that feature of the phone.

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Usability
Despite being a smartphone the N95 is really user friendly ,i think even my stupid dog bubby can use it and get used to it. the only problems is that the keys can me misleading , you have 9 keys in the front panel of the phone , in there 2 big keys one for the main menu and the other one for the media menu both keys have a specific logo but those 2 logos are nowhere close to tell you or at least give you the idea that those are the media and main menu. in usability i can give the N95 a 5/5

Extras
*The phone comes with some extras like the ability to print pictures
*Bluetooth Keyboard connectivity
*IR port
*TV OUT , the phone comes with a cable so you can plug it on the TV.

Overall im really pleased with the phone, it really beats my expectations as how a smart phone should be, once you get used to the phone is not only a phone, its a media machine, a business computer etc etc , whatever you want it to be, ladies and gentlemen i finally found something that beat the hell out of the iPhone without having a fancy GUI and touch screen capabilities.

USA might have new Cell phone Operators

if you live here in the US , big chances are that you already know the 4 biggest operator here:

T-Mobile
AT&T
Verizon
Sprint

yes, each carrier offers something the other doesn't have, each one is a bastard in it's own way of course but what could happen if foreign operators begin to set their eyes here in the US?. that's something i would love to know.
If you are not into cellphone stuff then you might not know NTT DoCoMo , Docomo is the main carrier on Japan, they were the creators of the i-mode service and 3G, Docomo have plans to come to the US as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator)but is it worth it?; have you ever seen a cellphone from Docomo? if not then take a look at the following pictures below.





Waterproof, Solar Powered , Exclusive designs...these beauties are the best on the country of the rising sun and you can't even compare them with an iPhone, they have more tools, they have more options , you can do more with these phones. One of the features that I'm really dying to try here in the US is the DCMX credit card service , this feature basically allows you to use your phone as a credit card , just tap the phone on a credit card reader and you are ready to go!!(pretty much like Blink). If Docomo ever comes here to the US i really hope they'll bring their Keitais (Keitai is how phones are called on Japan..more accurate is Keitai denwa). now let's see what the rest of the carriers here have to do when they see the beauties Docomo have.

i also forgot to mention that there are 2 other companies aiming here in the US , Softbank and KDDI, althought KDDI is an MVNO on Sprint Network, their phones suck, they are not even what they are as AU by KDDI counterpart in Japan.

overall , let's see how this thing goes.

Im really excited about this.

but it's just a button...

Today i was helping some guy online with a flash template and he asked me how do i create animated buttons on flash.........bad for him , because he lost connection and went offline. just in case you are wondering how ,there are 2 different ways

*Action Script way
*NO Action Script way

Graphic design is not a hard thing to learn anymore, everybody with a computer at home and time can learn, lucky me who had to learn everything from scratch when i was 15 , anyway, i know most of you guys are beginners so i may share some of my knowledge with you.

(there are a lot of tutorial online, if it happen you are not the kind of person who does not know how to make a search on Google and you end up on my blog....well......that's coincidence i guess).

Creating the button

What you have to do is open Flash (MX,8,CS3,CS4) and create a new document. open the library menu (CTRL+L) or you can also go to the menu->Window->Libray, this open the library so you must have something like the picture in the left . My Flash version is CS3 but there is not enough difference. now in the library window click in the Add new symbol button.

This will bring the symbol panel with the following options

Movie Clip
Graphic
Button

Select button and give it a name if you want, in my case ill name it HOME , thought there are no effects in giving a name to your object or no because we are not using Action Script, it's good for you to make an habit in naming your flash animation/website
components . So far you must have a windows like this one

Time line/Roll Over
After you press ok your time line is going to change, you should see 4 different options in the timeline: UP,DOWN,OVER and HIT; Those are the different states of your button i'll explain you that later, now draw a button with the rectangle tool , it does not have to be a fancy one either. Here is my Button.

Yeah i know , i said it does not have to be a fancy but i couldn't resist hehe =P , anyway, now were are going to start working with the timeline , is in this part were we are going to give animation to our button. go to the time line and select each frame and press F6 to convert that frame to a keyframe , your timeline should look like the picture below; why a keyframe?? well a keyframe denotes action since we want this button to have a roll over effect we need keyframes to achieve that effect.
in this picture we have all the states of our button (UP,OVER,DOWN,HIT) with a Key Frame . we are going to modify each state, this means change color, form to our button.

When you are done with all the fancy design you can go back to the scene, if you dont know how to do that take a look to your timeline, below should be an option called Scene 1-Home, click on Scene 1. Now you are going to see you flash document empty, where is your button ?? relax i'll tell you where it is. CTRL+L to open the library you should see your button in there, in my case my button is called HOME just drag the file to the workspace. test your movie.

Now you should have an animated button on FLash, you can add links to that button by following the next steps.

1) select the button and make a double click , Flash should take you inside the scene.
2)your Time Line should be with the options UP,OVER,DOWN,HIT again
3)Select the text of each buttons and go to the properties panel, in the url field type the address and select how do you want your button to open that website _blank(new page) , _self(same page)sorry for the quality of the picture but i don't have photoshop installed on my computer , the first red arrow indicates where you have to write the address and the second one the target (_blank, _self)

that's it now you have a nice button for your website, enjoy!