Rita | Fone Arena

Cellular Line iPhone / iPod Solar Emergency Charger Review

Most of you who own an iPhone or iPod Touch know that it’s a wonderful piece of technology, which is both a good and a bad thing. The good? You can do anything on it and you rely on it for music, gaming, GPS, office work, email, social networking, video viewing… The bad? The battery dies as fast as you charge it and you’re constantly trying to juggle between your needs and the settings for screen brightness, WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth connectivity, and Push email and notifications. Try to go on one road trip and if you don’t have a car charger, this becomes a daunting painful task.

This is where Cellular Line’s iPhone and iPod Solar Emergency Charger from MobileFun.co.uk comes into play. There are a lot of portable chargers out there, but I have had a fascination for solar powered chargers for a long time and thanks to this review unit, I was finally able to test one of them.

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The Clingo Universal Podium Rocks My Face Off

When it comes to accessories, I review a lot of them, some I will keep using, others I will stash in a drawer for specific moments, and others I will give away to friends and family. Just rarely, do I come across an accessory that, from the unboxing moment until the first use and throughout continuous usage, gives me the “I LOVE IT” effect. It probably happened with my Sennheiser CX-500 earphones only. Now I have another one to add to that category: the Clingo Universal Podium, sent for review by the awesome folks at MobileFun.co.uk .

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Travel Friendly Accessories For The Gadget Freak From Proporta

Before 2009, I had never taken a plane, never understood what a painful task it is to pack for airport security and long hours of sitting in an airplane confined to a small space. Then, all of a sudden, between 2009 and 2010, I had 16 airplane travels, and the reality of frequent travelers downed on me: it is an unpleasant lifestyle to say the least.

Being the gadget freak that I am didn’t make it easier either, as many times I have had to unpack around 4-5 phones, an external hard disk, a camera, an iPod Touch and my laptop while passing through airport security, then repack everything in less than a minute while not messing up my organization and while still looking relaxed enough to not raise any security threats. Also, the first few flights I took, I had to sit and suffer through the excruciating pain of using the airplane-provided earphones which are incredibly hurtful on the ears, to a point where a few times I decided to pass on the in-flight movies and load my own on one of my phones to be able to watch them with my personal Sennheiser earphones. Needless to say, I knew I needed better solutions and fast, so I turned to Proporta for them.

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The Regun Luxury Table Tidy Organizes Your Desk Clutter

When I first spotted the Regun Luxury Table Tidy on the MobileFun.co.uk website, I was immediately in love, yet in shock as to why there aren’t hundreds of solutions like this. I mean, yes, sure, the majority of gadget users probably only have one mobile device, unlike gadgeteers like me who have at least 4 or 5, but what about households or small offices or shops where the two or three employee phones keep getting misplaced and their chargers dangle and tangle from the walls? Why has no one thought of solutions as simple as the Regun Luxury?

But I digress. MobileFun were kind enough to send me a unit for review and I finally have my own problem solved. So read on to see if it can also solve yours.

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Nokia BH-905i Review – Spoiler: It’s Phenomenal

I’m sitting now, at the Costa coffee shop, with about 30 customers around, 3 tables nearby with heated discussions going on, and I can’t hear a thing from them. It’s like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie, I swear, people move, coffee machines go on and off, lips open and close, chairs are pulled away and back, and I don’t hear any of it. I’m not deaf, I just have the Nokia BH-905i headphones on, and I’m loving every second of it. They’re a review unit and I swear, this is the first time I feel that I don’t want to send a review unit back.

The BH-905i were announced during Nokia World 2010, back in September 2010, as a follow-up to the majestic Noise Cancelling Stereo Bluetooth headset that was the Nokia BH-905, and in this review, I will try to see how they measure up in comparison to their predecessors, as well as on their own. Continue reading “Nokia BH-905i Review – Spoiler: It’s Phenomenal”

The Ultimate Ipod Touch 4 Protection From MobileFun

When I got my iPod Touch 4, I thought I’d just slap on it one of the 4-pack generic screen protectors I had for my iPod Touch 2 and put it in the Marware CEO Premiere case I used for the old one. As it turns out, the 4th generation iPod is smaller and thinner, so the screen protectors weren’t a good fit and the case was just too big. I had to get new protection gear for my iPod and I instantly turned to MobileFun.Co.Uk for it because I knew they’d have a large selection of iPod Touch 4 accessories. I picked the Martin Fields Screen Protector for iPod Touch 4 and the Antimicrobial Silicone Case for iPod Touch 4 and MobileFun were nice enough to send me one of each for review.

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iPod Touch 4G vs 3G – Hardware Tour, Size And Retina Display Comparison

It’s only one year ago when I got gifted my 8GB iPod Touch 3rd generation and started discovering and enjoying the world of iOS and that ever-growing AppStore with thousands of cool apps and games. I was hooked almost instantly and used it extensively for a while, then all of a sudden, it started gathering dust in my drawer for a couple of months, and I was back in my old Symbian routine, using a Nokia E72 and N97 Mini. That was until I decided to take the iPod Touch back again, jailbreak it because I felt I was missing an opportunity there, and with multitasking enabled, we became the “bestest” of friends and stayed that way ever since. Lately, I’ve even been using it more and more, relying on it for all my Music and Gaming needs, for my RSS feeds with Reeder, for all my medical apps needs, and a lot of other functions too. Needless to say, those 8GB filled up pretty fast and I was battling the free MBs at least once or twice a week.

That was until the new generation of iPod Touch was announced, and the 32GB one was presented at a relatively affordable price, with all the novelties inside. I couldn’t help but cave in. And I’m pretty excited to say that I’ve been a happy happy camper ever since.

Click on all images to display the full resolution 12MP detailed photo.

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Nokia N8 Review Week – Day 7 – Connectivity

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Nokia N8 Review Week – Day 3 – Symbian^3 And UI

Hello and welcome everyone to the Nokia N8 Review Week here on Fone Arena! Each day of this week, one of our team members will cover one area of Nokia’s imaging flagship with all the do’s and dont’s. This should make for an exciting week and we’re all looking forward to that! Today is Wednesday, our names are Rita El Khoury and Sloan Bowman, and we have joined forces to tell you about the Nokia N8 software and what you can expect of it. Since the software/UI is a very objective and personal matter, we thought we would give you two real-world opinions of it, sometimes we’ll agree, other times we’ll have radically opposing impressions. Enjoy reading along and if you have any questions on that matter, leave a comment!

After tackling the Hardware and Camera in the previous days, two aspects where the Nokia N8 excels by anyone’s standards, we come to the most controversial aspect of the N8, the software or Symbian^3 and its UI. Symbian^3 is the first major software leap since Nokia brought S60 5th Edition on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Upon introduction, Symbian^3 was described as an evolutional not revolutional progression, meant to fix all the major issues that plagued Symbian’s first iteration with a touchscreen UI, and which were most heartfelt on the Nokia N97. Continue reading “Nokia N8 Review Week – Day 3 – Symbian^3 And UI”

Tip: Quickly Toggle Bluetooth And Screen Rotation On Symbian^3

One of the things that boggles my mind beyond belief on Symbian^3 is that there still is no way to quickly toggle Data, Wifi, Bluetooth and the automatic screen Rotation. Sure you can click next to the battery, then on the connection symbol, then choose what method you want, then turn it on/off, but does it have to be this ridiculously tedious? Seriously, would it have been THAT difficult to build a widget with 4 icons that allows you with a single press on each of them to toggle these 4 options on/off? SPB Software includes a connection widget in their SPB Mobile Shell so it sure must be easy for Symbian to do it themselves, ‘ight?

Anyway, ranting aside, we must be thankful to independent developers who, like with MusicBar, fill the void on Symbian. Two nice toggles have lately appeared with compatibility for Symbian^3, one for Bluetooth and the other for the screen rotation, and are both incredible handy additions to the Symbian^3 homescreen shortcuts widget.

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MusicBar Updated For Symbian^3, Camera Compatible Now

You might recall a few days ago I talked to you about an application called MusicBar that allowed you to set a specific button on your Symbian device to access music playback controls on your screen, no matter what application you’re using without disrupting your workflow. The main problem with MusicBar was that it had to use the Camera button on the Nokia N8 for example, hence preventing you from autofocusing while taking an image. Well Nicholas Usanov-Kornilov has updated MusicBar to 1.0.1 to fix this issue.

The new version of MusicBar brings a few improvements amongst which the support for the Symbian^3 selection UI. Now, when setting up the application, as previously explained in my first post, the Exceptions menu have been fixed and you can finally scroll down to the middle of the list and tick the Camera. By doing so, you prevent MusicBar from launching only when the Camera is active, that way you can use the Autofocus key to get your music controls in all applications, yet still use that to focus on an image while in the Camera. It’s perfect. Of course, if you want to disable MusicBar in other apps, you can also do so.

If you were previously doubting the usefulness of MusicBar, you shouldn’t even flinch with this update. It makes it a killer tool to add to your N8 or C7 or other Symbian^3 phones without the problem of messing with the camera functions.

You can download the new version from Nicholas’ website (russian page or Google translated page), but remember you have to register to download and you need to sign it before installing it.

Nimbuzz Launches v3 For Symbian, Brings Support To Symbian^3

Ever since I got a Nokia N8 unit for trial, I tried installing Nimbuzz on it, and the experience wasn’t quite optimized for the device. I ended up testing a beta version of their v3 which brings full support for Symbian^3 and many other nifty features and improvements. Just today, this new version has been announced and is live on m.nimbuzz.com so I can talk to you about it. First of all, these are the new features highlighted by Nimbuzz for their v3 release:

Customizable tabs: select which tabs you want to see and in which order.
NimbuzzOut call rates are displayed in real time before placing the call.
Recent calls tab: see all your received, missed and outgoing calls.
2 new chat styles: with avatars and without.
3 options to view the Contact List.
My info tab: gives you quick access to your profile, NimbuzzOut credits, accounts, suggested friends and friend invites.
Facebook Connect: removes the 400 contacts limit and connectivity issues
Sort contacts by status.

One of the first improvements you will notice in this new version is that the screen estate is better used in landscape mode and is suited for Symbian^3 devices.

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Tip: Control Your Music From Anywhere On The Nokia N8 In One Click

If you’ve ever used your Symbian Nokia touchscreen device to listen to music, like the N8 for example, you might have noticed that there is no easy way to control music playback from other applications. You could plug in the earphones to use the included remote control for that, but if you’re not carrying them around, you have to stop what you’re doing, use the task switcher, scroll to wherever the Music Player icon is, click it, pray that the last time you had it open you were on the Now Playing screen then Pause/FF/RW. Or you could stop what you’re doing, hit the Menu button to go back to the homescreen, pray that the last time you were there, it was on the homescreen that has the Music widget (or install that widget on all 3 homescreens), and then control your music.

Not. Fun.

Well, no one is the Symbian Foundation apparently thought of simplifying the process (how about integrating a Play/RW/FF bar in the Options menu that pops up when you press the Power button for example?) but luckily, we got cool developers who know exactly what the world needs. Enter Music Bar by Nikolay Usanov-Kornilov (Russian page, English translated version here), an app for S60 5th Edition that also works on the N8.

See the Music Bar controls on top of Gravity?

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80 Photos Of The Nokia N8 By The Nokia N8

If you thought “Geek Art” stopped at only piling up Nokia N8s inside each other, then think again. When you have a Nokia N8 in your hands, you realize two things simultaneously: 1. the hardware and design are like nothing by any other manufacturer currently, magnificently well built, and 2. the camera is astonishing, for landscapes, everyday shots, and specifically macro shots. It’s only when you add these two revelations together that you wish you could take a photo of the N8 with the N8, because no other device could capture this much details, and no other device is this beautiful.

Fortunately, if you have two N8s (even for the short period of time that I had them), you are blessed with the amazing opportunity of doing just that: taking a photo gallery of one N8 with another N8. Inverse and repeat.

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Geek Art: 5 Nokia N8s Inside Each Other

Question: What do you do when you have not one but two Nokia N8 review units at hand and a *lot* of free time?

Answer: Well, what any respectable geek would do, you play, you take pictures, and eventually you try to breed them, because you know that ultimately, you have to return both, but you *so* want to make your little N8ties to raise, love and keep when the parents are back with their legitimate owners.

And this is the result. Can you see the 5 Nokia N8s in this photo? (Click on the image to open the full 12MP resolution one). Oh it’s beautiful!

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