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How apple could improve iPhone battery life

One of the most crippling complaints about the iPhone is the atrocious battery life. Mine will barely make it through the working hours day without a charge let alone through a night away. One of the causes of this could be attributed to the iPhones, at times, over simplicity.

I am specifically refering to the iPhones wifi controls or lack there of.

On any wifi enabled Nokia symbian powered device the user has access to advanced configuration options for the wifi receiver. These are fairly well hidden from easy access but there nome the less. One of these controls is signal power of which the user has three options to choose from. The lowest of which is 4mW

Even this low setting gives enough wifi range for comfortable home or work usage without sacrificing valuable battery life.

So please apple, don’t treat us like complete untechnical morons and at least give us basic control of some of the more advanced features of this (and as a nokia fanboy hate myself for saying it) great handset.

– Post From My iPhone whilst plugged into a charger

HOT – New Nokia 5800 Firmware v21.0.101??

Instead of going to bed I thought I would give the new Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 Beta a quick try which looks pretty sweet. Even more interesting however is the Update screen which is telling me that my Nokia 5800XM has a firmware upgrade!!!???

Check out the pic after the jump.

Hands on with the Nokia E75 – eek serious problems

The good people at 3mobile Australia have kindly provided me with a demo Nokia E75 QWERTY Slider handset.

My first impressions of the S60v3 FP2 handset was “Bloody Hell its heavy” but in saying that the build quality seems to be quite exceptional.

The outside looks and feels great! It’s the insides that have me less than impressed.

As a huge fan of the S60v3 OS and a previous user of the Nokia N95 and E71, I was quietly confident in my ability to get stuck into this handset with little problem. Oh how wrong I was.

As a 3G Roaming or “Mega 3″ compatible handset with built in WiFi I assumed that getting onto the internet should be as straight forward as connecting to my home WiFi access point, and off I go.

Get up to half price Mobile Broadband with the new Education Tax Refund

From 1 July 2009 under the Education Tax Refund (ETR), eligible education expenses for an Australian child’s primary or secondary education, purchased during the period 1 July 2008 – 30 June 2009 may be claimed as a tax refund of up to 50%.

These expenses cover a range of items such as home internet connections including mobile broadband such as the recently reviewed 3 Mobile Internet Key E160 on both Prepaid and Postpaid plans.

The Education Tax Refund (ETR) is a new government initiative to help with the cost of educating primary and secondary school children. It means eligible parents, carers, legal guardians and independent students could get 50% back on some education expenses.

Hands on with the Nokia E75 QWERTY Slider

Today I took delivery of a demo Nokia E75 handset provided by 3mobile Australia. The Nokia E75 the latest qwerty keyboard handset however this one features a bit of a twist.

Hidden behind the body of the handset is a full length qwerty keypad.
This slide out keyboard gives the user two methods of text input, the slideout qwerty or standard T9 keypad entry.

Rant – Nokia’s Ovi Store vs Android Market vs Itunes App Store

Having recently played with a HTC Magic running Android and getting stuck into the Android Market as well as playing with friends iPhones and the Apple iTunes App Store, I can see a major issue that will prevent Nokias recently released OVI Store from making a killing.

Facebook on the Nokia 5800 (for Free)

Facebook, recognising that the Nokia 5800 is the first of many Nokia Touch screen devices, have launched the official Facebook app for Symbian S60v5 Touch Screen devices.

With large “thumb friendly” buttons, the S60v5 Facebook app launches to your News Feed with all updates for today as well as separation between today’s and yesterdays updates.

3mobile Australia have also recently launched a Free Facebook promo which allows all Three Australia customers free access to Facebook until the 31st of August 2009!

3 Mobile Broadband Internet Key E160 – Does what it says on the box

There isn’t much that you can really say about the 3mobile Mobile Broadband Internet Key E160 as it really does do what it says on the box.

Three recently provided me with a test unit of this “Mega 3G Modem” which provides mobile broadband access both within the 3 network and whilst roaming on the Telstra NextG 850MHz network.

Installation and operation of the E160 Internet Key is really quite simple.

Hands on with the HTC Magic “Google Phone” on 3mobile – Android

The good people at 3mobile Australia and HTC recently gave me a pre-release trial of HTC’s latest Google Android powered handset, the HTC Magic.

Due to be launched mid June on both Three and Vodafone (soon to be merged into Vodafone Hutchison Australia yet are still trying to undercut each other), the HTC Magic is the first Google Android powered handset to be released to the Australian market.

My pre-release HTC Magic package came in an unmarked box with no manual nor software, just the handset itself, charger, USB cable and 2GB MicroSD with SD adapter.

Who needs a manual anyway!??

Getting slow Mobile Broadband speeds on 3mobile? This may be why..

Apparently 3mobile users may notice slower than usual mobile broadband speeds between the hours of 8pm & 11pm, the peak time for Mobile Broadband usage.

The challenge for 3 (or any mobile broadband carrier) is that these “high density hot spots” are transient, due to customer behaviour and the implementation of network upgrades.

If you are experiancing slower than normal Mobile Broadband speeds you can call a dedicated Internet, Modem & Data Support team @ 3care on 1300 651 545.