Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

The hotly anticipated N900 phone from Nokia has been unveiled on the Vodafone website under the coming soon bracket making it the first network to be selling what will hopefully be Nokia’s comeback phone against the iPhone, when it hits our stores in January.

The sequel to the N97 and what looks to be a more robust, better working phone(gutted because i got the N97…..typical)  had been rumoured to be on Vodafone Ireland recently but now its got the “officialness” now on Voda UK. Similar to the N97 in looks and size this powerhouse of a phone can multitask like no other. using the Maemo 5 OS which is based on Linux this will allow the phone to operate with ease and speed, add to that an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and 1GB RAM you can really see this phone will work wonders.

Usual features like a 3.5” high res(800x480), resitive touchscreen(which although not as good as a capacitive one like the iPhone, but Nokia really has got this one working quite well), 32GB of internal storage, 5MP camera, WiFi, Firefox based browser with Flash 9.4 support and Ovi connectivity for all those apps.

Not too sure of any price ranges as of yet as it’s still “coming soon”

It seems despite O2’s successful trial of LTE that we talked about yesterday, its them pesky Scandinavians always beating us to high speed internet(shakes fist). Swedish operator TeliaSonera have said today that they will launch the first 4G network. The company is going to trial it’s service with its users in the Stockholm area of Sweden and the Oslo area of Norway in the early part of 2010 with Finland coming shortly after.

As we said yesterday we’re going to be looking at the end of next year before we get 4G mobiles, TeliaSonera are allowing users to get download speeds up to 100Mbps using a laptop and a new Samsung mobile dongle.

Ericcsson has put the infrastructure together in Sweden whereas the Chinese company Huawei who’ve just done those tests near Slough we spoke of, are setting the Norwegian side up. Still its all good news and for once shows that Britain won’t be lagging too far behind for a change.

Warnlaser recently sent us their 20mw Razor Series Laser to review. This is Warnlaser's new series of violet lasers which actually use a genuine Sony Blue-Ray diode.

The Laser we are reviewing currently retails at $99.99/ £60 which does seem quite expensive though this is actually the cheapest in the Razor line with the 200mw laser retailing at $379.99!

However this is no cheap and tacky laser pointer you buy off the market, you can immediately tell it is quality by the quality black case you receive with it similar to what you would get if you bought an expensive pen.

The laser is quite large compared to cheaper laser on the market, and is about the size of a pen, though if you are using this for a presentation it is probably more comfortable to sue this way.

It also comes with an attachment which appears to spread the laser into multiple tiny dots, I am not sure if there is any practical application for this but I guess it looks pretty.

The beam itself is quite appealing and it does appear to have a good range, it manage to cover about 20m of my office with no problems.

Overall I think their is limited appeal to this gadget, it would make quite a nice stocking filler but at £60 it is a bit on the steep side for a stocking filler. If you spend most of your work time doing then presentations then yes this laser definitely will have some appeal.

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The mobile giant O2 has been testing and been successful in the next stage of mobile information speeds. 4G mobile broadband can reach speeds up to 150Mbps. This will surely see an end to HSDPA and will see “LTE” as its known come to our mobile phones and other web devices in the future.

The Chinese company Huawei worked alongside O2 in the UK near to where O2’s headquarters are based(in the Slough Area) and managed to get download rates to the 150Mbps mark. Currently HSDPA can only get between 3.6Mbps or 7.2Mbps(but we all know this is just theoretical and never actually happens just like your home broadband).

This obviously isn’t going to be instantly out there in the market as its only the first successful test of LTE that has worked and apparently we’re looking at late 2010 at least before we see 4G dongles or phones out there, with more than enough capability of HD streaming over the mobile network. The speeds are also obviously a lot faster than current home broadband speeds so lets hope we can see an improvement there too.

With the Android explosion on phones and tablets, its no surprise that the next thing the versatile OS would be doing branching out even further. In South Korea, this new hand-held has been flying round the developers but Odroid has now got the green light on a worldwide developer release for £210 with free shipping.

Obviously powered by Android the console packs a 3.5” 320×480 capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity alongside Bluetooth connnectivity. It also has a microSD slot for memory expansion but the best thing its packing is a HDMI out slot allowing you to output the video at 720p to your TV.

Click Here for a YouTube video showing it in action with its “tilting” control system. It just shows though that Android could in future be a real competitor for the mobile games market not only on phones but now in the handheld world. Maybe we can see a similar tech being used in future games console controllers.

Again we have a new set top box here for you, that when released we can all bask in the glory of HD without the need for a Sky or cable subscription. Obviously Freesat is available and quite tempting with thinks like BBC iPlayer and ITV player but unless you’ve got the know how to install the dish, you’re stumping up the cash for that and either your integrated tv or box aswell.

3View have come with this great little box that with dual tuners will be able to snap up that HD signal and also with a built in 320GB HDD you’ll be able to record all your favourite shows. Not only that the 3View box can connect to the internet, use BBC iPlayer, Twitter, Facebook etc and any other web page. The big thing it will do that most wont is have access to HULU when it gets released in the UK giving you more access to web based TV. If you think this might be hard on a remote, no worries a keyboard and mouse will be available.

No price details as of yet but 3View are looking at a release of March.

Ok so we said before about Freeview HD, when it was coming etc. Now Some masts are pumping out the signal, why aren’t there any set top boxes out there to pick this free HD signal up. Well I can’t personally explain that but what I can say is that the first set top boxes are outed and will be released next year.

Humax HD-FOX T2 should be out in Q1  next year. Firstly it’ll tune its self with its auto-tune facility, it’ll quite gladly receive the 720p yes that’s right 720p signal(not too futuristic yet) but this box will upscale to 1080p at 50Hz. It will play media from a USB drive or HDD. We don’t have the full details on file format support but one clever thing is you can record onto a USB drive to save buying the full PVR.

If you’re after a PVR version then the DVB-T2 HD has a 500GB HDD inside to store your favourite shows in HD and SD. It also keeps the 1080p upscaling, wireless network capability via UPnP and again the USB connectivity.

No prices are available yet or exact release dates but its believed the lower end HD-FOX T2 will retail at around £170

Here’s one for my boss as he loves skiing and for all you other powder lovers. Now you can get a set of goggles with a built in HUD or “heads up display” for the non-techs out there. Designed and manufactured by Recon Instruments the goggles house a 15mm diagonal micro display inside the lens, obviously seen on the inside by the wearer.

The display will show various kinds of information to your eyes whilst you’re careering down the slopes( to me that sounds dangerous, but i haven’t skied since i was 13). With GPS capabilities the HUD can display your speed, jump hang time, altitude, temperature and also has a stopwatch to time your runs. It has also been said Recon are trying to get the display to tell you where your friends are located if they have the goggles too.

Not got a release date yet but you’ll be looking at parting with $350 to $450(£230 to £300 approx.)