Ok, our society is always bigger, stronger, faster. Mates compare the size of their respective flat screen televisions like their significant others compare the size of …other things.  The more we demand out of our smart phones, the more features the handset makers cram into the devices. In fact, most leading edge smart phones are more powerful and capable than our desktop computers of not too many years ago.  Once one makes the decision to buy either a Android, Apple, Blackberry or Windows Phone from there features are the only way for one handset carrier to distinguish itself from another. Even Apple and RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, differentiate their respective offerings based on price and capabilities.

There is a price for all of this power in our hands. That price is of course paid by the battery.  The more we demand of smart phones, be it bigger screens faster processors, LTE data (someday Ofcom willing), or better streaming media all extract increasing demands on the battery of a mobile phone. Alas, Moore’s Law has not made it to battery size and power, so the  demand is always outstripping the supply as it were.

The result is either frequent charging, battery swapping; or bigger batteries.  Smartphone makers, and users, on the whole usually dabble in all three. However, with the increasing demands on a smartphone to replace a computer, many carriers are moving to kill two birds with one store and make bigger screens that in turn allow for bigger batteries. Even Apple, whose iconic co-founder the late  Steve Jobs derided over sized smart phones as undersized tablets, is credibly rumored to be coming out with a larger screen with the iPhone 5.

The question remains:how big is too big for a smart phone? Many say that anything over four inches is too big. Much larger than that and the phone no longer easily fit in a shirt or jacket pocket or purse. Not only size but weight is also a factor, past a certain point going over email on a heavy phone is less like being connected and more like working out. That is what people have said about devices  with screens up to 4.7 inches. Then you have the Galaxy Tab, a monster at 5.2 inches and widely held out as the current size champ.

When the Galaxy Note came out, I for one was convinced that it would fail miserably in the market. The specs are pretty good and the screen is first rate abet at the cost of poor battery life. But the size. How many of us want to ride a train or walk down a street looking like we are talking to a copy of National Geographic?  However, if sales numbers are to be believed, talking to copies of National Geographic is an up and coming fad. Samsung reports excellent sell through on the device and the American carrier AT&T is particularly pleased.

iPad, Galaxy Note and Blackberry

Something I found interesting was a post from American Internet curmudgeon Mike Cane. (Note: @mikecane is well worth following on Twitter. He has a take no prisoners attitude in his posts and blog that is more than a bit refreshing) Mr. Cane lives in New York City and in his meanderings about the city notices that the Note was being embraced by the  every man rather than the tech elite and suits. This set me to wondering if people were buying into the Galaxy Note (and by implication other oversized) phones instead of buying a smartphone and a tablet. If that indeed is the case, then the rumored “mini-tablets” may find getting traction in the market to be a hard slog indeed. Why buy a mini tablet when you can buy a slightly smaller Galaxy Note or its like?

Tells us what you think is too big in a smartphone. Or do you want your smartphone super sized?

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Can a smartphone be too big?

The biggest obstacle to purchasing a Kindle Fire for use as an everyday tablet, OTHER THAN YOU CAN”T GET IT FROM AMAZON.CO.UK (apologies, but I feel much better now)  is the fact that the current Fire lacks any way to connect an external keyboard. Amazon had to keep the cost down somehow, and not adding Bluetooth or an external keyboard was apparently part of the process. Put this firmly in the speculation category, but there are some programs out there already that enable handwriting recognition for the Kindle Fire and some evidence that  Amazon may have to either tout handwriting recognition over an expensive accessory or add features to the Fire to match Apple and other Android products.

Accurate handwriting recognition has been one of the Holy Grails of any hand held device. One of the most famous first attempts was the Apple Newton, but it became more well known for its flubs than its accuracy. The late, great Palm brought handwriting recognition mainstream with its easy to learn Graffiti language that made Palm PDAs the geek standard for keeping track of your personal information.

The advent of the Handspring (later Palm) Treo and RIM Blackberry line and smart phones generally pushed handwriting recognition to the background in favor of keypads and texting. However, the Apple iPhone, ushered in capacitive touchscreens and until the advent of Capacitive stylus products the only way to input into recent smart phones and tablets was your finger, your voice or if truly cold and desperate a meat stick.

As smart phones started losing hardware keyboards in favor of more screen real estate, users were finding the onscreen touch keyboards unsatisfying. In other words, we ham handed people who do not have either the hands of a surgeon or a child had a hard time entering information at any reasonable rate. Further, handset makers were discovering that there was a reason that people wear gloves in the wintertime. Even Apple can’t ignore the market where it gets cold. And meat sticks can be so greasy.  Enter the capacitive stylus.

Some have speculated that Apple sees a world where we talk to our phones and tablets as evidenced by Siri on the iPhone and voice dictation on the third generation iPad. Android appears to at least be competing in this arena as well. However, unless you live in the world where you have a private office, a car and driver and the like, the rest of us run the risk of suffering the fate of those who appear to be talking to themselves in the Underground. Or at least brassing off our coworkers.

Right now the Kindle Fire, like other Android products have access to several handwriting recognition programs. Unlike many other Android products,  there is no way at present to mate a Kindle Fire to a hardware keyboard of any stripe and thus Amazon has to either provide a way to do some kind of input or be relegated to a media player on steroids and not a viable tablet option for anyone who sees a tablet as a possible notebook replacement or supplement for serious email or note taking. Pushing handwriting recognition may be the most cost effective way to do it.

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Is Amazon going to tout Handwriting Recognition on the Kindle Fire?

About a month ago Blackberry unveiled it’s latest phone that would be the first out with the new Blackberry 6 OS. Now we didn’t touch on it at the time but we’re letting you know now due to the fact it’s now got a release date and price for this country and it’s going to be later than Blackberry initially suggested (surprise, surprise).

AS said earlier it’s the first Blackberry release to have it’s all new Blackberry 6 OS. The 3.2” 480×360 touchscreen has a slide out QWERTY keyboard and will also sport 512MB RAM, 4GB of internal storage which can be expanded via MicroSD. There will be Bluetooth connectivity alongside WiFi b/g/n and it will also pack a 5MP camera with flash. Now although the specs aren’t mind-blowing, the phone’s OS should be a big enough draw to it, especially for all the Blackberry fans out there.

Initially Blackberry said it would be weeks after the US release it would reach our shores, sadly it’s now going to be late October. Our friends expansys have the phone up on their website now to pre-order but at a whopping £569.99 it seems quite pricey. Play.com also have the phone listed too, but they’re asking for a much more reasonable £499.99 SIM-free.

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Blackberry Torch 9800

7Digital will be the default music app for Blackberry users thanks to a deal signed up between the two companies. 7 Digital which recently had 50% of it bought by HMV offers 100% DRM-free downloads and has a rather extensive library.

The price war between 7Digital and iTunes has started already with 7Digital cutting the price of singles to 77c a track, to iTunes 99c per track. As per usual though the UK wont benefit from it as  both companies still sell tracks to us at 79p.

Coming first to the Curve 8900, the Bold and the Storm it will come head to head with iTunes and Nokia’s “Comes with Music”. Over the next few weeks/months it will be added to more of its phones.

7Digital’s music is encoded at 320kbps, larger than your average mp3 but obviously a better quality than what iTunes offers to you. It also has a good little tool called “Wi-Fi Auto-Sync”. When the phone is connected to your mobile network, it downloads lower audio quality versions of tracks, then upgrades that to full quality when your phone’s in range of a faster wi-fi connection. Clever eh?

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7Digital / Blackberry Music Store App Launched

CrackBerry Nation have managed to acquire some images of the up and coming Blackberry Storm 2.

Looking at the photos, you can see it shares its physical appearance with the original BlackBerry Storm.

Specific information about the Storm 2 is a little scarce however Slashgear reported that it will include Wi-Fi.

More images after the jump.

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BlackBerry Storm 2 pictures leaked

BGR are reporting that the 3 new handsets from BlackBerry have been confirmed. However at the moment it is only the codenames that are confirmed and the release details are not fully confirmed.

BlackBerry Onyx:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi (no UMA support)
• QWERTY keyboard
• 480×360 resolution screen
• Confirmed carriers: AT&T

BlackBerry Driftwood:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi with UMA
• QWERTY keyboard

BlackBerry Magnum:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi (no UMA support)
• QWERTY keyboard
• 480×360 resolution screen
• Confirmed carriers: AT&T

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New BlackBerry handsets rumoured: Onyx, Driftwood and Magnum

BlackBerry have recently leaked some details of their forthcoming BlackBerry 9630 Niagara.

This will likely be the successor of the Blackbery Curve 8900 will see 3G added this time around plus the gorgeous 480 x 360 pixel display and GPS maintained.

The camera will be a slightly disappointing 3.2MP and it is believed wi-fi maybe dropped.

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BlackBerry 9630 Niagara

Blackberry have released a pretty cool video for the Blackberry storm. The only problem I can see here is that when Apple made the Mac vs PC ads they kinda had a point, whereas I think it is generally regarded that the iPhone is much better than the Storm.

Oh well, it is a good advert anyway!

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Video: Blackberry Storm ad attacks Apple

Apparently Orange UK is going to be the first carrier in Europe to launch a BlackBerry device on a Pay As You Go service.

It will be an exclusive indigo colour that will sell for £145. There is no word on how the pricing will work as data access is quite an important aspect of BlackBerry’s and the current Orange PAYG plans don’t include data (apart from Dolphin where you get free access to Facebook). BGR stated the monthly fee is £5/month though I am unsure if they mean minimum top up or if that’s the fee for data per month.

The PAYG Blackberry page can be found here

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Orange launching PAYG BlackBerry 8120

Truphone is a free piece of VOIP software that has been available on S60 phones and the iPhone for some time now.

Truphone have now launched a BlackBeryy version of this popular VOIP client allowing users to make free or very cheap phone calls with no roaming charges

Instead of requiring the user to remember what to do, Truphone Anywhere simply asks whether he/she wants to make a Truphone call whenever an international number is dialled. The user simply accepts, and Truphone connects the call. This reduces international call rates to as little as £0.03/$0.06 per minute.

The Blackberry application can be downloaded here

Press release after jump.

Truphone launches low-priced international call service for BlackBerry® smartphones

October 28th 2008 – London, UK – Global mobile network operator Truphone today launched a beta of its mobile internet telephony service, Truphone Anywhere, for BlackBerry® smartphones. Truphone Anywhere brings simple, easy and cheap international calling to up to 40 million BlackBerry users across the world.

Truphone Anywhere works in 33 countries worldwide. It saves BlackBerry users from those countries money on the international calls they make from their home country. The service works alongside domestic service providers, but reduces international call costs to as little as £0.03/$0.06 per minute.

Truphone works with the user to save them money. Instead of requiring the user to remember what to do, Truphone Anywhere simply asks whether he/she wants to make a Truphone call whenever an international number is dialled. The user simply accepts, and Truphone connects the call.

“There’s no GSM business tariff that gets close to the prices we can offer BlackBerry users with Truphone for international calling,” said Geraldine Wilson, new CEO of Truphone. “And in these days of financial belt-tightening, businesses are looking at every means of cutting costs, which is an opportunity for us. Truphone is a genuine alternative carrier for international calls, with the potential to reduce annual mobile bills for the largest companies by many millions of dollars,” continued Wilson.

Aaron Simpson is the BlackBerry-using chief executive of Quintessentially, a private members’ club that provides a 24-hour global concierge service and is part of the world’s leading luxury lifestyle group. He stated:

“Quintessentially has offices all around the world and, as CEO, I’m in constant contact with all of them. I’ve been using Truphone on my Blackberry and its low call rates have enabled me to make those calls at a fraction of the cost of using my mobile provider.”

In technical terms, Truphone Anywhere works by connecting to a local Truphone server, which then connects the long-distance part of the call over the internet. Because most BlackBerry users are contract customers, the local connection to Truphone is, typically, free because it uses bundled minutes from the customer’s usual cellular service provider.

Truphone for BlackBerry smartphones is available to download for free from www.truphone.com/blackberry. Alternatively, Handango users may also download Truphone from www.handango.com. There are no monthly subscriptions or other charges.

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Truphone mobile VoIP application comes to BlackBerry