Archive for September 8th, 2008

HTC Touch Diamond Review

Published by Babar Bhatti on September 8, 2008 under Mobile Companies, Mobile Phones, Mobile Trends, Telecommunications, iPhone

The first one of the two anticipated touch phones from HTC to be introduced this year is almost ready for prime time. The usual reviewers from WSJ and other media have played with it and written reviews. The HTC touch diamond phone has its own software running on top of windows mobile OS and so the interface hides most of the windows menus. According to this review HTC has made a good attempt of improving windows usability items but it falls short in comparison to iPhone, its main competitor. Ultimately the buyers will decide when the phone is in the market. This is at a time when growth in smart-phone sales has slowed, hurt by the weakening economy and slowing consumer demand.

Taiwan-based HTC started out in 1998 as a maker and designer of mobile devices for other companies. A year ago, HTC launched the first device under its own name in the U.S., and now, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile sell HTC-branded devices. The Diamond incorporates HTC software, as well as software from Sprint, MobiTV, TeleNav and others. But it isn’t a stretch to imagine HTC trying to create a fully end-to-end model (hardware and all software) in the future.

The Diamond has a touch screen, but it’s smaller than Apple’s iPhone — 2.8 versus 3.5 inches. This screen lacks the iPhone’s multitouch functionality, and its smaller size robs space used for touch gestures like flicking or scrolling with a finger. Yet like the iPhone, it relies solely on an on-screen keyboard for all text entries. Even with the Diamond’s stylus, the keyboard felt small and cramped. Using just your fingertips was next to impossible.

Despite its handsome TouchFLO 3D software and animated icons like photos that flip from one to the next with a flick of finger, this device failed to disguise the frustrating interface of Windows Mobile often enough for my taste.

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Braintel Service Is Back - Note The Changes

Published by Babar Bhatti on September 8, 2008 under Broadband Internet, Telecommunications, VOIP

Please note the changes mentioned below, as posted on the Braintel website. All Braintel users, please test this beta release and share your feedback on the newly introduced “extra step” which is needed to complete the outgoing call. I am thankful that the service is functional and will monitor it over the next few days for issues, quality and performance.

We are please to inform you that the service has been fully functional now as of 8th Sep 2008 (2:40pm PKT Daylight ). To avoid misuse of our service by grey service provider, we have made a small amendment in the service. We are introducing Computer Assisted Dialing system (CAD) that will help us to overcome the misuse of our service.

In CAD system you have to dial your destination number just the way you used to dial before 4th August 2008; after dialing your destination number press # key and wait for few sec and then simply hang-up the line; your phone will ring back within 45sec and you’ll be hooked with your dialed number.

If the destination number is busy, conventionally you have to try again and again, in CAD system you don’t have to dial again and again but our CAD system will do the rest, just the way a private secretary or your company’s telephone operator make the call on your behalf.

CAD system is new and unique; you may experience some intermittent disconnections during its beta testing.