INQ Chat Vs Nokia E63

A few of my friends commented that the INQ Chat looks like the Nokia E71 and I totally agree. The E71 is one of my all time favourite phones and I had seriously considered buying it. However it would be wrong to compare the two side by side as the INQ Chat is way cheaper. A better comparison would be the Nokia E63, which costs approximately the same.

Extra feature present in the E63 (not present in the INQ chat) includes Wifi connectivity, FM radio, 3.5 mm audio jack and LED camera flash. On the other hand the most exciting feature on the Chat are the home screen widgets that offer instant links to the social network sites. It also has a 3.2MP camera whereas it is only 2MP on the Nokia. The Chat also has a built in GPS receiver and built in plug n play HSDPA modem and on the basis of those extra features the INQ Chat just edges over the E63.

The new INQ Chat 3G

This is the third model from INQ Mobile – the fully-owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa and thus directly related to the 3 mobile network.

Looking at the features, I won't be surprised if the INQ Chat 3G becomes more popular than the first model - the INQ1. It's not a touch screen phone but it comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA and 3G connectivity and a 3.2 camera. What makes this phone different from other offerings out there is the fact that it comes integrated with push email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and instant messaging.

The phone is obviously targeted at the younger, so called Facebook generation. I am sure they will also love the changeable battery covers - which comes in shiny red, yellow, green, pink or black.

Like the other previous INQ models, you can connect your laptop to the Chat via USB and use it as a wireless modem.

All of this comes at only £99.99 on PAYG or £15 on a 18 months contract with the 3 mobile network.

Data collection woes and unsolicited mails

Like a lot of other people out there, I hate receiving unsolicited emails. unfortunately, this time I am the one that has to send them. This was due to the fact that I still have not reached my targeted number of respondents even after an extension on the deadline (Now's it's the 31st of December 2009. I guess, sometimes in life, you have to do things you hate to achieve your goals or targets.

So for the past week I have been sending out emails to bloggers and blog readers all over the UK via email addresses gleaned form their blogs and elsewhere while cringing every time I press the send button. It was quite risky as well considering that some bloggers can be quite nasty to people and stuff they don't like. I am quite surprised that I have so far received only one email asking me to remove them from the mailing list.

However, I have no choice as my entire PhD research is at stake and I am just hoping that these people would look kindly at this poor PhD student and the fact that this is purely an academic research. Hopefully the holiday spirit will help as well.

Of course there is the fact that a 50p donation will be made to Cancer Research UK for every completed questionnaire plus there's a prize draw for all participants who provide their contact details - an opportunity for you to suggest a donation of £100.00 to a charity of your choice or take the cash prize for yourself (your choice) and 10 other respondents will win Amazon vouchers worth £10 each.

Please feel free to distribute this information to anyone you think may be interested - an email or a mention in your blog would be really appreciated. You can access my online survey here: http://www.surveymk.com//blogs

Thanks and Merry Christmas

Burberry's social media strategy

According to Angela Ahrendts, CEO of British Luxury brand Burberry, their online sales have exceeded sales in many of their flagship stores.

They have also recently launched a social networking site called 'The art of the Trench" which as the name suggests focusses on their iconic Trench coat. They hope to connect with potential new customers - namely the younger generation while maintaining the relationship with existing customers.  Faceboook users can send in pictures of people wearing trench coats. The best pics will then be added to the site.  Users can comment on and even vote for their favourite photographs.

They hooked up with fashion blogger Scott Schuman, also known as The Sartorialist who came up with the initial series of photographs.

Watch Angela's interview with the Financial Times online here.

If you are a Facebook user and a Burberry fan, do check out their Facebook page.

UK Broadband forums

If you are looking for unbiased information on any product, forums are often the best resource. I am in the process of setting up a wired home broadband network and O2, my broadband provider, doesn't tell me much on how to go about setting up the router and other stuff. Even though I have some experience setting up a local area network (LAN), there were some problems getting the new router to work. Tried Googling it and I found some forums discussing similar problems about UK broadband service providers.

In one of the forums, I contacted one of the guys and he was really helpful. He actually emailed me listing down the step-by-step procedure to set up the broadband connection. Since then I have been joining and contributing to various forums and sharing my experiences, as well as queries about problems that crop up and it has been a fairly good experience.

Right now I am going through the UK broadband forum, which discusses various UK broadband providers. The forum seems to be fairly new and when I last checked, they just had only 141 members. There were a few queries about some of the UK broadband providers I was previously with and as far as I can tell from the members' comments, they still haven't improved. I definitely wanted to contribute my two pence worth and decided to join in. Registering on the forum was a breeze and took me a couple of minutes. Best of all, I could start posting straight away.

For those who are interested, the forum also discusses mobile broadband providers in the UK as well.

Also check out the Think Broadband forums and Digital Spy forums as well. The later focusses on broadband internet services from BT, Virgin Media and Sky..

DROID by Motorola

Really looking forward to trying out the Droid when it launches in the UK on the 7th of this month. Running on the Android 2.0 OS, the phone is said to be the true iPhone beater (I know a lot of die hard iPhone fans will disagree) with more than 800,00 units sold in the US since it was launched there on the 6th of November.


The thin full-QWERTY slider phone has a 3.7” 400,000 pixels display and comes with 5.0 megapixel, autoFocus, dual LED Flash and image stablisation camera with DVD quality video recorder and 16GB microSD memory card expandable upto 32GB. best of all, it comes preloaded with all the best Google Mobile Services including Gmail, Googlemaps, calendar, YouTube, etc. You can also access thousands of applications and widgets from Android Market. A really innovative feature is the voice-activated search.


As for battery life, you don't need to be worried. The phone comes with 385 mins/6.4 hours talk and 270 hours/11.25 days standby time.

The phone will be available via Expansys (unlocked sim free) for £449.99 and with service provider T-Mobile Combi for a £35 a month contract. 

And some of my students thought that Motorola only made 2 way radios.

The Powermat - wireless gadget charging

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Powermat. All opinions are 100% mine.

Right now on my table I have two phones, a camera battery, a Sat-nav and a power screw driver charging and you can imagine the tangled mess of wires underneath. I am sure you have experience the situation whereby you wanted to recharge a particular gadget and the adaptor is missing, on to discover later that your wife had taken it downstairs.



I was really excited when the Powermat first came out. No more searching for the right adaptor for your gadgets and no more messy wires. The Powermat is definitely one of the most useful technological innovations. This revolutionary technology allows you to charge multiple devices without cables. All we have to do is place the enabled gadget on the power mate to recharge the batteries. It is compatible with various phones, MP3 players, cameras, Sat-navs, etc. The idea is so simple and useful, sometime I wonder why no one had thought about it before.

There is only one cable to the charger mat. Also once the device has been recharged, charging automatically stops. I really like the cool design. Using the mat is so simple and you can keep it to your office, in your dorm or on the road. I definitely want one.

When a mobile phone loses it's best feature

I really loved my Sony Ericsson K770i Cyber-shot. Some of you might have noticed that I used the past tense "loved" instead of "love".

I got the mobile phone on a contract with 3. The only reason I choose the K770i was because of the 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus. I loved the fact that the lens was protected by a protective cover. Sliding this cover down immediately opened the camera. Whenever, I had low or no light, all I had to do was put on the xenon flash.

Loads of pictures on my Flickr page were taken using the phone.

Unfortunately, the only reason I bought this camera was lost the minute my wife dropped the phone. Something got broken I think and opening the camera brings up a warning "Another application is running. Close it then start the camera". Quite strange because there are no other applications running.

Without the camera, there's nothing much special about the mobile anymore.

My eyes are on the K850i Cyber-shot phone with it's 5 megapixels camera - a true camera phone.

Preserve your memories in a Photobook

A few days back at a friend's place, I noticed this beautifully printed and bound coffee table book. Picked it up and was surprised when I realised that the pictures in the book had all been taken by him. My friend had ordered it from the US and it was quite costly.

While looking for a local company here in the UK, I came across a company called Photo Productions. They are actually the first (and I believe to be the only) company in the UK to produce and sell these premium DIY photobooks direct to consumers online. It's such a great idea and I was quite excited thinking of creating our own family Photobook album.

The site is quite user friendly and they provide full online proofing of the photobook designs once you have completed designing your Photobooks. The prices are quite reasonable starting at £175 for a 10 pages book. They would definitely make great Wedding albums or for any special occasion. Best part is that delivery by courier is free in the UK. You also get a 10% discount on subsequent books.

This post  was brought to you by Photo Prooductions Ltd.

Nokia starts shipping the N900

The Nokia N900 based on open source Maemo 5 software are now on the way to the stores. The mobile phone will be available in retail stores this month. You can preorder it on just £499 or £34.26 per month on a 24 month contract with Vodaphone.

The Nokia N900 has been on my to have list since it was launched in August. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

Happy Birthday Firefox

Firefox, my favourite browser is now 5 years old. The first version Firefox 1.0 was launched on the 9th of November 2004. I am proud to say that I was among the earliest adopters of the browser and introduced hundreds of people to the browser (mostly my students at Universiti Utara Malaysia). I have remained a loyal fan ever since and in fact, am  blogging this on Firefox 3.5.5.




Happy Birthday Firefox