Apple has once again brought us another breakthrough invention, the IPhone. So what is it about the iPhone that makes it the current electronic device of choice for many?
The iPhone’s Safari browser provides excellent Internet surfing experience. Over the Safari browser, web pages are displayed in all their html glory. All the graphics and images are displayed, instead of the stripped down versions where limited images and text are shown. Of course, the phone’s excellent quality widescreen adds even more to the experience.
Visual voicemail further pushes the iPhone to the forefront. In the iPhone’s visual voicemail, users can skip messages and move on to the more important ones without having to go through every single message in the mailbox. This makes the iPhone an extremely productive tool.
The phone’s user interface experience is unmatched by any other phone so far. iPhone’s innovative multitouch technology allows users to manipulate the device in varied, fun ways. You can do a multitude of functions with a touch of a finger: zoom in by pinching fingers apart on the screen, flip through web pages by sliding your finger across the screen, press and hold down to magnify a section of text, swipe across the display to look at photos and so on. When browsing the internet or watching videos and playing music, you can tip the phone to its side and the screen adjusts automatically to landscape mode. The iPhone display screen is so attractive you just can’t help but touch it.
Aesthetics is also another factor that sets the iPhone apart from other smartphones in the market. Its design is quite unique – it looks sleek and trim, with practically no external trappings around the phone. The only buttons you see on the phone are the menu button, the power button which you can also use to control calls and on the side are the volume and ringer mute switches. It is very compact at 4.5 inches long, 2.4 inches wide and 0.46 inch thick.
The iPhone is also an iPod, with yet another improved feature: album artwork display. You can browse through your song list in Cover Flow mode and the screen will show you the authentic album designs. This makes it feel like you are flipping through your CD collection.
There is a YouTube player integrated into the phone. You can search the most featured clips, access the most recently posted videos and the most popularly viewed much in the same way you would over the YouTube website.
Camera functions of the iPhone are pretty good. Its 2-megapixel resolution lends to rich, brilliant images and although you cannot edit photos on the iPhone and there is no flash, overall picture quality is still excellent. The shutter feature is also cool, when you take a picture the display closes and opens much in the same way a camera lens would.
Fans of the iPhone say it may indeed be the new standard under which smartphones will be judged. So if you don’t currently own an IPhone, now is the time to get one.

Popularity: 5% [?]

With all the gadgets out today, one may ask himself if he really needs to have an iPhone. Since this smartphone from Apple can do just about anything, the answer is yes.
There is an iPhone feature for everyone. Since it performs all the major functions that a busy person needs to get through the day, he won’t need to bring another gadget. Aside from making and receiving calls, one can also use this device to watch videos and programs with just a flick of a finger. He can search for his favorite video in the specially designed YouTube player.
IPhone versions with higher memory capacity allow the user to enjoy movie watching on its 3.5 inch screen. You can watch the video on a landscape layout; you even have the option to view it on full screen mode. If you are merely listening to the music, you can easily scroll through the lyrics by using your fingertips. You can enjoy the best the iPod has to offer with this device.
With Wi-Fi technology, the user can readily connect to the internet wherever there is a hotspot. He will be able to enjoy browsing using the iPhone with its Safari browser. With this, he can view the full html webpage and not just the choppy view which is common in most smartphones.
If you are a demanding person, having an iPhone is all you need. You can set reminders on the phone’s calendar or leave notes using the phone’s application. You can use the map if you need to get to an unfamiliar location. You can also get a traffic report on the different routes leading to your destination to avoid traffic jams.
With a QWERTY keyboard, doing SMS messages is a breeze, it can even prevent from committing spelling errors with its built in dictionary. It may feel strange at the beginning but once you get the hang of it, everything will be easy. You can easily type in the message you want to get across whether via text or email.
The device also allows the user to multitask. You can download something on the background while answering a call. You don’t have to turn the music on low because it does that by itself. The user doesn’t need to lift the phone to his ear to answer a call if he has a Bluetooth designed headset. He can actually do something else while talking to someone. Plus, he can easily merge calls for a conference call. After the conversation is done, the volume automatically turns up to desired level and he can continue listening to the music.
IPhone takes pride in its advanced photo management application. It has a 2 megapixel digital camera. You can take images that can be organized in an album. You can use it to capture videos as well. Aside from that, you can also use the camera for a video call when needed.
The iPhone have a lot to offer. You don’t need a separate gadget because it does all the major functions you need for work and relaxation.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Palm Centro is one of the newest smartphones available on the market today. Very few people know about the Palm Centro because it’s release was greatly overshadowed by the new Apple iPhone. The Centro is much smaller than previous Palm smartphones, weighing in at only 4.2 ounces. As with nearly all Palm smartphones, the Centro operates on Palm OS making it easy to download and install countless third party applications. Compared to the iPhone the 64 MB of internal memory on the Centro seems small, but with microSD cards that memory can be expanded up to 4 GB. The reason Palm decided not to go with more internal memory was the lack of necessity. The Centro is meant to be a phone and a PDA, neither of these require extremely large amounts of memory though they did keep expansion slots available for those who wish to use the Centro as a media player. The Centro has been designed to work with common applications such as Google Maps, AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, and others. Along side these official applications is an endless selection of user-created and third party applications which can achieve nearly anything on a Palm device. Some of the leading features of the Centro are the touchscreen, 1.3 megapixel camera, a full QWERTY keyboard, and even a powerful and fast web browser which is capable of much more than the average cell phone browser. Depending on the plan you purchase from Sprint, it is even possible to watch live TV on the Centro.

Currently the Centro is only available from Sprint or directly from Palm, and as a result the phones are locked on the Sprint wireless network. There are currently no plans for the Centro to become universally available, so it is likely that it will remain a Sprint only phone. Because the Centro is made by Palm, there is a strong history of excellence behind the Centro. Prior to the Centro release Palm’s leading line of Treo smartphones had dominated the smartphone market. Perhaps one of the best aspects of the Palm Centro is its price. For a qualified buyer who signs a wireless plan with Sprint the Centro is available for as little as $99.99, even without a plan the Centro is available for as little as $399.99. Both of these prices are very competitive in the market, and for what the Centro can do these prices are very good. If you are looking for a touchscreen phone, which can compete with the iPhone the Palm Centro might be a good phone to checkout. With nearly all the same features as an iPhone, as long as you don’t plan to listen to music on your phone for hours the Palm Centro will provide exactly what you need both as a phone and a PDA.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Movie fanatics can not seem to get enough of watching movies. Oftentimes, however, video stores can not catch-up with movies being posted on the Internet. People now turn to the web to download the latest movies available.

Do not let the sophistication of the Internet fool you. In fact, because of the availability of different file formats, movies can now be played from Personal Computers (PCs), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and other smartphones. File conversion from one format to another is also available making it more convenient to download movies than to buy the latest DVD from a video store. Downloading a movie, however, can take time. To be able to speed up movie downloads, a number of factors must be taken into consideration. The speed of a movie download can be affected by the download rate and the upload rate of the movie source file.

The download rate of a dial-up connection to the Internet is very slow compared to that of a broadband Internet subscription service. A dial-up connection is enough for Internet surfing, audio streaming or chatting activities but is not advisable for movie downloads. For one, the connection is unstable and can disconnect anytime forcing you to restart the download. Also, the speed of download can take up to a day because of the very slow connection.

In the Internet, the downloading models in use is either a per-movie download with a fee of 3 to 4 dollars or a per-membership download with a fee of 30 to 50 dollars. The advantage of the per-membership model over the per-movie download is that it is a one-time payment, after which, a member is free to download any movies from its network of servers or members. Each member of the per-membership model is also encouraged to participate in a community sharing of movie files. We are actually talking about millions of movies for free.

It is possible to have more than one member downloading files from a server. In this regard, the uploading rate of the server can also have a negative effect on the length of download time. To speed up movie downloads, the movie file is divided into small parts and is housed to a number of servers in the network. It can then be downloaded simultaneously from different servers contributing to a faster download rate. The concept is known as segmented downloading or multi-source downloading.

A common example of the concept presented above is the BitTorrent protocol. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing communications protocol that is being adopted by file-sharing websites. Its main advantages is its low demand on networking hardware and bandwidth. Other similar file-sharing sytems include Swarmcast and KaZaA.

Popularity: 2% [?]