iDay is finally here

As the world awaits the Apple iPhone world premiere in the United States, the world of technology and gadget enthusiasts is in a standstill, for at least until 6pm local US time today anyway. Today has been proclaimed iDay by iPhone enthusiasts.

Not many companies have announced a phone and manage to sustain the public's interest 6 months later, and perhaps even build more excitement and hype as the release day comes closer. It's quite amazing. The fact that more than two thirds of the 300 million US population are aware of the device is just staggering.

As we await the US public's reviews of the iPhone, and see whether it sells out, or flops, we'll leave you with a couple of early iPhone review videos and interesting news reports on 2007's most anticipated gadget. If only the Bruneian release was not so long from now..

Standing in line for the iPhone - REUTERS


A sneak peak at Apple's iPhone - CBS News


iPhone review by David Pogue of the NY Times


iPhone review by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal

02 XDA Flame: Power attracts

The o2 XDA Flame is the first ever PDA-phone to boast a dedicated graphics processor, featuring the advanced NVIDIA® GoForce® GPU for ultra-crisp graphics.

If that's not enough to tickle a gadget-lover's fancy, then we suggest you read on.. The PDA packs 2GB of onboard memory and an Intel® XScale® PXA 270 Processor running at 520 MHz, which powers an unsurpassed user experience.

The generous 3.6-inch VGA touchscreen lets you enjoy movies and photos on the go. You can even immerse yourself in surround sound thanks to the SRS WOW HD.

The XDA Flame also has the basic wireless features you'd expect, which includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and IrDA.

This 3G phone which runs on Windows Mobile lets you view and edite documents with ease, and even lets you connect to an external projector to deliver your PowerPoint presentations.

Perhaps a more fascinating feature of the phone is its long range IR function, which turns the XDA Flame into a universal remote control. Easily customize your phone to control your TV, audio systems and airconditioning if you want!

The 02 XDA Flame is available online at the QQeStore, while stocks last, with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information on its current price, please click here.

Sony Cybershot DSC-T100: For those with impeccable taste

The DSC-T100 joins Sony's T-Series of Digital Still Cameras as perhaps their best one yet. For the past few years, the updates to the T-series models haven't been too spectacular, it's usually been just about the same thing for every new model; higher resolution, maybe a larger screen, and perhaps more choices of colours. Not with the T100.

Sony has really put some thought into this one, packing it with a new and powerful 5x optical zoom, a new image processing engine, a very well revamped user interface, and support for component video output. All this on top of the usual T-Series features such as Sony's Super SteadyShot optical image stabilizer, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar Lens, large 3.o-inch LCD display and VGA movie mode.

This 8.1 megapixel camera also comes with Sony's Face Detection Technology, which will automatically adjusts the focus, exposure, white balance and even flash control on multiple faces in a single shot. This feature is guaranteed to amaze you the first few times you use it. Its remarkable how the camera actually detects and knows where people's faces are!

Sony's Double Anti-Blur Techonology helps u deliver remarkable results, whether you're shooting active subjects or taking quick shots. The T100's High Sensitivity of up to ISO3200 offers enhanced sharpness and clarity when capturing subjects at high shutter speeds, or under low lighting conditions.

Since the T100's release into the Bruneian market a few months ago, the camera's become quite a best-seller when compared to other models due to its affordability and value for money.



The T-1oo comes in Red, Silver and Black and is available online at the QQeStore, while stocks last, with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information on its current price, please click here.

iLuv i9200: A fusion of the old and the modern

This beautiful, yet quite affordable music player gives you the best of both worlds; if you love your iPod but can't bear to part from your huge CD collection from back in the day, then this is the perfect solution for you.

The iLuv i9200 music player, available in either black or white, has vertically mounted CD loaders, complete with sliding doors, which look good, especially when they're spinning, remeniscent to the high-end B&O stereos. The i9200 plays virtually any type of CD, be it regular CDs, burned CDs and even MP3 CDs.

Perhaps one of the best selling points of this stunning Hi-Fi is that it has a universal iPod dock, which supports all recent iPod models (and charges them too), and can even be controlled via the i9200's remote control.

The Hi-Fi also integrates an AM/FM radio and an alarm clock, which lets you wake up to either the radio or your favorite songs.

This mini audio system is wall-mountable too, and comes with a wall-mounting kit, which will, without doubt look good underneath your plasma or LCD TV.

The iLuv i9200 is available in Brunei via HiMax Trading & Services, please call 8711113 for more information.

The HTC Touch: Is it really the iPhone killer?

Hot on the mobile phone market at the moment is the Touch, HTC's answer to the Apple iPhone, but is it really the so-called iPhone killer?

This Windows Mobile device boasts a revolutionary new TouchFLO Platform, a new touch screen technology that enables both finger and stylus input, including finger scrolling and panning. TouchFLO's Touch Cube 3-d interface gives you one touch access to your messages, the Internet, music, pictures and more, simply by sliding or sweeping your thumb on the screen, which surprisingly looks quite amazing.

The Touch is the smallest Windows Mobile PDA phone in its class (99.9mm (L) X 58mm (W) X 13.9mm (T)), even smaller than a typical business card holder.

This sleek little mobile is a universal GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band phone, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Internet sharing capabilities. The Touch also a packs a reasonable 2.0 megapixel camera in its tiny shell.

Time will only tell whether this phone really fares better than the iPhone. We'll all just have to wait until the iPhone is finally released and only then will we be able to compare the two. One good thing about this cool gadget though is, unlike the iPhone, it's already reached our Bruneian shores..



The HTC Touch is available online at the QQeStore with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information on the phone's current price, please click here.

The much anticipated Apple iPhone: Let's hope it's worth the wait

Perhaps one of the most anticipated phones ever, the long awaited Apple iPhone will finally be released on June 29th in the United States, much to the envy of us Bruneian fans, and perhaps everyone else outside the States.

The innovative fusion of a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and a breakthrough Internet device has managed to woo mobile phone lovers and tech enthusiasts all around the world.

But what makes it so special? The music player, camera, Internet and email browser, and mobile phone are quite common in some of the modern, newly-released phones, so what makes this phone different from the rest?

Apple's ability to combine all these elements with many cool technological innovations and the company's distinctive beautiful design sense is what made the world buzz with excitement and enthusiasm.

Perhaps the most obvious feature of the phone is that there isn't a physical keyboard. The user interface relies heavily on a high-resolution touch screen which uses finger taps and gestures to navigate through the wide range of available services and applications.

The iPhone also boasts sensors that track light and movement and proximity, to prompt the phone to control screen brightness and other aspects of its operation. For example, when the phone is placed next to the user’s face, the touch screen is automatically turned off to avoid unnecessary taps.

The iPhone’s accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape, and automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio.

An ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light, thereby enhancing the user experience and saving power at the same time.

With the modern world's ever-increasing need to connect to the Internet from anywhere and at any time, the iPhone boasts a rich HTML email client and Safari, which Apple claims to be the world's most advanced web browser ever on a mobile phone. The fully multitasking phone lets you read a web page while downloading your email in the background, over a Wi-Fi or EDGE connection.

Since it was first introduced in January, the iPhone has seen quite a significant amount of improvements. Perhaps the most important update announced so far is that the iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback. In addition, it will feature up to 250 hours (more than 10 days) of standby time. The 3.5-inch display has also been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior clarity and scratch resistance.

As of today, Apple has just announced that users will be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones once its released. A new Apple-designed application will wirelessly stream YouTube content to the iPhone and play it on the 3.5 inch display.

As the world awaits the release of this exciting new product, we will just have to wait and see how much of a hit it really will be, especially in the Bruneian market. One thing's for sure, no matter how bad or good the previews are, people will still be camping and queueing up for it when it hits the US stores come June 29th.

The iPhone will be released in Asia in 2008, and there's no word on when it will hit our Bruneian shores. In the meantime, all we can do is enjoy, and drool over the ads..

Samsung's F300 Ultra Mobile: Flip from your music, to your life, and back again

The recently launched Samsung SGH-F300 Ultra bears a huge resemblance to Samsung's smart-looking line of MP3 players up-front, but once you flip it on to the other side, you'll indeed see a normal-looking phone interface. This dual-faced design combines a mobile and an MP3 player in a surprisingly slim 9.4mm shell.

This mobile, promoted in TV commercials and advertisements by singer Beyonce, supports the GPRS/EDGE Tri-Band Networks, providing you with fast and wide access.

The F300 also boasts superior audio quality powered by Ice Power, one of the world's most advanced digital amplification technologies, developed by Bang & Olufsen.

Weighing a mere 77g, the phone has quite a large built-in internal memory of 100MB, which you can expand with microSD cards to up to 2GB. The F300 sports features such as a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth connectivity, FM Radio and E-book viewer.



The SGH-F300 Ultra mobile is available online at the QQeStore with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information, please click here.

Apple's new MacBook Pro: Stunning beauty and powerful performance, all in one package

Apple introduced the newest model in their professional performance laptop range last week, sporting new Santa Rosa chips and power-efficient LED-backlit displays.

The new MacBook Pro range, which still comes in either 15- or 17-inch models, boasts Intel Core 2 Duo processors which deliver higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing and music encoding. The MacBook Pro sports a new Graphical Processing Unit in the form of NVIDIA's brand new GeForce 8600M GT Graphics Controller, which delivers serious processing power.

Surprisingly, with the amount of performance packed into these anodized aluminium notebooks, they're still only one inch thin and 5.4 and 6.8 pounds, for the 15- and 17-inch models respectively, and are among the thinnest and lightest notebooks in their display class.

The new MacBook Pro features built-in Airport Extreme, which allows 802.11n wireless connectivity, with speeds up to five times faster and up to twice the range compared to the previous 802.11g standard. The new Airport Extreme is also compatible with Wi-Fi certified 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g technology, giving it the flexibility to work with a variety of Wi-Fi access points.

Battery life on high-powered laptops are usually dismal, but the MacBook Pro seems to have overcome the problems, with the new Santa Rosa platform, NVIDIA chips, and LED backlighting all touted as being more power efficient and better on the battery.

Putting all performance-related features aside, The MacBook Pro also incorporates cool features on its notebook such as its backlit keyboard, which uses a built-in ambient light sensor that adjusts the keyboard and display brightness for optimal visibility.

The MacBook Pro's built-in iSight camera makes it easy for you to have video chats, make movies and take high quality photos with special effects, using Apple's iChat AV, iMovie HD and Photo Booth software, all of which are bundled with the notebook.

The sudden motion sensors help protect your data if it detects a fall, by parking the hard drive head during fast changes in orientation.

Apple's innovative scrolling trackpad lets you scroll through documents or web browsers by simply dragging your two fingers up or down the trackpad.

Perhaps one of the more practical features of the MacBook Pro is its power adapter with MagSafe connector, which uses a magnetic connection instead of a physical one. So, if you happen to trip over the power cord, the MacBook Pro won't fly off the table, the cord simply disconnects, with no damage to either cord or notebook.

All in all, the new MacBook Pro is excellent, and without doubt an excellent choice for anyone looking to purchase a performance notebook/laptop.

For a more detailed list of its features and technical specifications, please visit the Apple website here.

The MacBook Pro is available online at the QQeStore with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information on the current prices of the 15- and 17-inch models, please click here.

The Prada Phone: LG's head-turner

After the success of their Chocolate phone (with its touch-sensitive controls), LG has come up with a phone with almost no buttons. Designed with high fashion label Prada, the new KE850 Prada mobile phone is quite revolutionary to say the least. The phone combines Prada's attention to detail, avante-garde design and uncompromising quality with LG Mobile's technological innovation.

The Apple iPhone might have generated the most buzz this year, but LG and Prada definitely beat them to the finger-touch interface by 3 months, at least. Its capacitive touchscreen technology display is by far its best feature, which works far better than we imagined. Just playing around with the touch sensitive screen is a joy and so much fun.

The phone has a resolution of 240x400, making it slightly larger/longer than the typical QVGA display and can brightly and clearly display up to 256k color shades, which is more than adequate for photos.

The overall build quality of the Prada phone and its accessories is, not surprisingly, quite good. The phone feels solidly built and its simple and elegant curves give it a real touch of class. Even the box it comes in looks as though it was designed for an expensive watch, not a mobile phone. It comes with a trendy hard-leather case emblazoned with a Prada logo, as well as a Prada-branded cleaning cloth and a hands-free headset.

The Prada phone supports GSM networks and EDGE data on the two European bands, 900 and 1800MHz, as well as the 1900MHz band. It has a video player that supports MPEG-4 and H.263 formats, an FM radio and a music player that supports MP3 and ACC files. The phone's 2-megapixel camera has an LED photo light and shoots both still pictures and video.

Surprisingly, there's even a document viewer that supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat files. Documents are reformatted to fit the width of the screen, so there's no need to scroll sideways to read the text.

For a first-time collaboration between LG and Prada, this phone is a significant achievement that will get you noticed whenever you use it. This is by far one of the most attractive handsets that we've seen so far, and while it's not perfect in every area, it still manages to keep LG firmly at the top of the fashion phone market. Visit the LG Prada Phone's webpage here for more information.

Here's a review of the phone from cnet.com..



The LG KE850 Prada Phone is limitedly available at Incomm for $1,288 (further discounts with a DST Card). For more information, please call 2420122.

The sleek, gorgeous phone is also available online at the QQeStore with the absolute lowest price in Brunei guaranteed!* For more information on the phone's current price, please click here.