Gadget review

The iPhone lost it spot as the top selling phone to the Blackberry Curve in the first quarter of this year, but that doesn’t necessary spell the end of the iPhone’s market dominance, said Ross Rubin, an analyst for the researchers NPD Group. According to NPD survey, the five top selling smartphones between Jan09 an March09 were the Blackberry Curve, iPhone 3G,BlackBerry Storm, Blackberry Pearl and T-Mobile G1 with the Anroid operating system.
The Curve was the big winner for two main reasons. One was Verizon’s “Buy one, get one free” deal for the Blackberry. Another one is the Curve is available through four major carriers while the iPhone remains exclusive to At & T.
But not to take anything away from the capabilities of the Curve, Rubin said, “it’s lightweight, inexpensive and thin, and embodies the characteristics that make the Blackberry a popular phone.”

The fact that the Curve shot ahead on an aggressive promotion signals promise for the much-awaited Palm Pre.
“When a carrier supports a device, it does well,” Rubin said, assign that sprint had promised record spending to market the Pre.
The Pre may be the iphone’s most prominent challenger in coming months. As a conclusion , we see smartphones continue to gain share in the overall handset category.

NOKIA’S new N96 may be what multimedia phone lovers have been waiting for all this while. It is packed with such features as video and TV, Music, maps, photos and the internet. The models is quite big. It is wider & bigger than other N series models and comes with a generous 2.8-inch display which translates into better Multimedia viewing and playback.

The big screen makes web browsing easy as a full web page can fit it nicely on the screen. What’s more, despite it’s bigger size, the N96 can sit comfortably in your palm and be handled with one hand, which makes it practical.

One of the best things about the phone’s display is its ability to adjust itself to suit your viewing. For example, the image will stay vertical to the eye mo matter how the phone is held-vertically or horizontally. A forward slide will reveal a T9 numeric keypad while a backward slide will show a small selection of dedicated music player control keys and wide screen mode selection.

Picture quality-wiser, the 16 million colors display proves its worthiness as images display are excellent, with acceptable brightness and contrast even when the phone is used outdoor. 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss camera lens with dual-LED flash is a plus. You basically can do away with digital cameras with this huge pixel quality.

A major technological advancement that the N96 brings is the built –in digital video broadcasting-handheld TV tuner, which is enables the phone to receive DVB-H broadcast signals for mobile TV channels . Beside having a DVB-H tuner, the N96 ia a step ahead in connectivity. It comes with Wi-Fi signal finder, USB 2.0, Bluetooth.GPRS,3G, EDGE and high speed downlink packet access, making it one of the most connectable devices available today.

For music lovers, the phone is a noteworthy musical box, supporting a number of music formats. We can sort songs by artiste, album, genre or composer. The only grouse with this N96 is its flat keypad, which makes a nit challenging to tap on the keys. We may need dome time to get used to it