Toluu

Mobi·gas·mic

"Is that a gadget in your pocket...?"

Wireless Charging Bold-StyleToday

The feature of the Palm Pre that immediately piques my interest was the wireless charging via the Touchstone. And even when my husband pointed out that it was the same technology from his decade old electric toothbrush, I was still in awe. However, in my brief time with the Pre I didn't get the Touchstone but I did read some of the concerns in the PreCentral forums: overheating, etc.
That's when I realized that my Blackberry Bold had been doing a form of wireless charging for the many months I've had it. The charging pod lets you drop your Bold into it and charge via the contacts on the side of the phone. And at $15 a pop with no special battery cover needed I can afford to have one just about everywhere!

Sent via BlackBerry Bold

Seduced by SenseJuly 2

When I saw the HTC Hero I had the same reaction I have to all the other 'black slab' phones I see popping up all over the place: meh. Then I took a harder look at the HTC Sense UI that the device featured and it made me think long and hard about how I'm using my Bold these days. You see, the memory on the Bold is small, so generally you settle on a handful of apps and that's it. For me, that list includes the twitter app SocialScope, Facebook, Viigo newsreader, Poynt, Woman Mobile, and Ascendo Money. On Windows Mobile I thought nothing of loading dozens of apps regardless of whether or not I ever actually used them. These days I don't really even miss apps I don't have.
So, imagine if the few apps I do use were running in a widget format that I could flip through Palm Pre card-style. And instead of having the (annoying) ribbon notifications on the bottom of the screen, you had the android toolbar with its minimalistic approach.
If an device like this came to market with the body of the Blackberry Bold (which has the best keyboard I've ever experienced-beating even the Asus EEE PC in my opinion) I would probably scoop it up in a heartbeat. I enjoy using the Bold and it does what I need it to do very well but it just doesn't bring a lot of finesse or eyecandy to the table. My iPod Touch on the other hand is a lot of eye-candy but definitely not enough substance to convince me to go the iPhone route.
I hope I see a QWERTY-bar version of the HTC Hero in the

Sometimes, a Sim is All You NeedJuly 1

Something odd happened to my phone on Monday. About halfway through the day I realized that I hadn't received any emails on my Bold. I tried surfing the web and I couldn't do that either, but I could make calls and send texts. I assumed something was off with my BIS but I couldn't find anyone else with the same issue anywhere online.
I decided to call AT&T to see if they could help with the issue. The first guy ran me through a number of tests and then decided it was a RIM problem- he transferred me through to RIM where I spoke with another rep who ran me through more tests and then said he needed to send me over to tech support. This guy finally determined that the issue must be with my sim card. I was skeptical about that since I could still make and receive calls, but at this point I was desperate enough to try anything.
After work I popped into my local AT&T store to pick up the sim card. I had my first pleasant surprise when the sales guy looked at my phone and asked which model of Blackberry it was. I told him it was a Bold and he asked how come it was all sleek and black. I explained to him that I had put a custom bezel on it and he asked about where I got it from and how hard it was to put it on. I love any opportunity to geek out with someone else so I was happy to oblige.
I got the sim card (free- which was a change from the $25 I had to pay a few years ago for a replacement) and put it in my phone. Imagine my surprise when I finally go

PrizeFight: Pre vs iPhoneJune 25

I was watching this CNET Prizefight and all I could think was thank goodness there was no Blackberry included for the startup test! These days my Bold takes about 2 minutes to get up and running....but this poor guy has to wait a whopping half hour!

Obsessed with PowerJune 23

Confession time: I have this spreadsheet, that I've been basically maintaining since last summer. I use it to track my battery life on my various devices, factoring in any number of variants that I feel might affect battery performance. Looking at it now, I'm almost embarrased at how obsessive compulsive it seems to be. But I am happy at the data I've compiled over time. How does your smartphone stack up?



SS=Socialscope, vid= 30 minutes video, 1800 mah battery measured before and after conditioning.