All New Gadgets Updates

ust last week, we saw why the X3-02 is a really good handset for the average mobile phone user. Today we look at the C3-01 which in many ways resembles the X3-02. The design of both handsets is very different but otherwise most of the features and specifications of the X3-02 and C3-01 are pretty much the same. So what does the C3-01 have to offer to its users?

Design and Build Quality
As mentioned earlier, the C3-01 looks like a completely different mobile phone if you have to compare it with the X3-02. The basic candybar form stays the same, however the edges of the C3-01 are curved and it weighs a little more than the X3-02. The handset has a metallic matte finish throughout except the keypad which is plastic. The overall grey gives the handset a professional look but the functions speak otherwise.


The 2.4-inch screen has a decent 240 x 320 pixels resolution which looks pretty good for the size of the display. The brightness of the screen is quite good and the colours are quite nice as well. Below the screen, there isn’t any dedicated music or SMS keys like the X3-02, rather it houses two keys for making and ending calls. The keypad is the normal T9 design without any change made to the *, 0 and # keys. The volume rocker, screen lock and the camera button on the right are well placed and easy to use. Although the mini-USB port on the top might feel awkward for some, there’s not much of a problem while connecting it to a laptop or PC.

The build quality of the mobile is really good. The phone does not boast of any ruggedness. However, it does have a solid feel to it. Overall, the design and build quality of the C3-01 is really nice.

Features
Interface
Here’s where the similarity actually shows. The C3-01 runs on the same Symbian OS, S40 platform 6th edition. So there’s not much of a difference between how the two function. The touchscreen is resistive and responds really well. Transitions between menus and options are all very fast and apart from a couple of occasions where it lagged a bit, overall operation is really smooth.


The homescreen is the same as before, where you have the options to customize and select shortcuts that you usually use. You can add a maximum of three shortcuts and below the homescreen, the quick launch bar lets you add four more shortcuts. So the user has a total of seven shortcut options to select from, which is a pretty wide range.

Media
While the piece that we received for review did not have bundled earphones, we still checked out the sound quality with external ones. This feature, just like previously, does not disappoint at all. The mids seem to be almost perfect and the highs sound good as well. The base seems to be a little low but that’s not too bad. The C3-01 has a Stereo FM Radio with RDS which also sounds good.

The C3-01 supports one less video format than the X2-01, that is the XviD format. However, the 2.4-inch screen is still too small to actually watch videos and we recommend that you don’t really use the phone for videos in particular.

There are three pre-loaded games on the C3-01 and you can also download more games and other themes or apps from the pre-loaded Nokia Ovi Store.
Connectivity
The regular connectivity options of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are present and the C3-01 is also 3G-enabled so you have some great connectivity options right there. The phone is also EDGE/GPRS enabled for those who cannot completely avail of 3G services. Something we did notice was that the speeds on EDGE were pretty neat and although not superfast, they weren’t slow at all. The phone also has a mini-USB port for interfacing it with a PC or laptop and transfer rates are quite decent.


The C3-01 has a Nokia Communities app which lets users access Facebook and Twitter from that same app. Although not the best out there, the app still does the job.

Miscellaneous Features
Regular features like the To Do list, Alarm Clock, Calendar, Voice Recorder and even more are all present in the C3-01. Obviously if a user wants to download some app, they are always free to do so from the Ovi Store.

Camera
The C3-01 has the same camera as the X3-02 with a 5 megapixel lens and can shoot pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The one extra feature that this phone’s camera has over the X3-02 is that this one might just get some better images in darker backgrounds thanks to the LED flash. Apart from the flash, the image quality is pretty similar to that of the X3-02 and yet again there’s not much you can actually speak of.

The camera can also shoot videos in a 240 x 320 pixel resolution at a frame rate of 15 fps.

Battery Life
Even after speaking for around two hours and some slight music and internet usage, the phone can last till the end of the day. One thing to be noted is that the talk time spent on the phone was not continuous, but even then you can fully charge the C3-01 and the phone will last you throughout the day.

Verdict
Probably one of the toughest decisions to make is whether a user should actually buy the C3-01 for Rs. 8,000. The phone costs about Rs. 400 less than the X3-02 and the features are almost the same. There’s a slight advantage of the LED flash but that’s only if you’re really hell bent on taking pictures in the night. If you’re more for looks, the X3-02 is a great option. This one on the other hand, is a very average looking version of the X3-02.

Microsoft's webOS luvvin' partner HP is among the PC manufacturers getting copies of early Windows 8 code, according to reports.
HP and other Windows PC OEMs are reported to be getting builds of Microsoft's next desktop operating system known as milestone 3 – seriously pre-beta stuff.
Doing some back-of-envelope numbers based on earlier reports, Microsoft was due to start coding milestone 3 at the end of February, it seems this tranche of Windows 8 code is a month old.
What are PC makers getting, exactly?
According to leaked screen shots on different sites, something called History Vault, which is described to be analogous to Mac OS X's Time Machine for back up.
There's also a system-reset feature that'll let you reset your machine and retain your data once that inevitable day comes, often very soon, that your Windows PC starts slowing to a crawl.
We've yet to see what Windows 8 will look like. Rumor has it there will be two interfaces: a tile-based UI and an application programming model code-named Jupiter that'll download new Windows apps from Microsoft's Marketplace.
The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, incidentally, was reported on Wednesday to have hit the 12,000 mark, with 3,000 apps having been added during March.
Meanwhile, there are growing whispers that Windows 8 will set the next version of Internet Explorer – version 10 – as its default browser.
If, as is being calculated, Windows 8 will hit beta in September with a view to shipping in 2012, that would mean the quickest IE development turnaround in Microsoft's history, and would make IE9 the shortest-lived version of Microsoft's shrinking browser.
Speculation is already mounting that a pre-beta, show-and-tell version of Windows 8 will be on display for the company's partners at Microsoft's World Wide Partner conference in July.
Other features expected in Windows 8, according to slides leaked last year, include support for a tablet form factor, instant-on, and facial recognition.
When Windows 8 does arrive, one person who won't be pulling the Windows PC marketing levers will be Microsoft's über comms chief, Mich Matthews.
Microsoft's global head of marketing is stepping down after 22 years with the company, during which time Microsoft launched Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 on the desktop.
Each launch now follows a familiar monolithic format: global venues, white papers from paid analyses like IDC to "prove" its net value to local economies, and a desperate hunt for a table of features that justify not only your upgrading to the latest version of Windows but also buying the most expensive SKU.
Matthews said that she has not got another job, but wants to do something new.
The change comes after Microsoft said it was putting out a tender $1bn of its ad spend in the US. The incumbent on this portion of the business was the Interpublic Group of Universal McCann. ®

Microsoft's webOS luvvin' partner HP is among the PC manufacturers getting copies of early Windows 8 code, according to reports.
HP and other Windows PC OEMs are reported to be getting builds of Microsoft's next desktop operating system known as milestone 3 – seriously pre-beta stuff.
Doing some back-of-envelope numbers based on earlier reports, Microsoft was due to start coding milestone 3 at the end of February, it seems this tranche of Windows 8 code is a month old.
What are PC makers getting, exactly?
According to leaked screen shots on different sites, something called History Vault, which is described to be analogous to Mac OS X's Time Machine for back up.
There's also a system-reset feature that'll let you reset your machine and retain your data once that inevitable day comes, often very soon, that your Windows PC starts slowing to a crawl.
We've yet to see what Windows 8 will look like. Rumor has it there will be two interfaces: a tile-based UI and an application programming model code-named Jupiter that'll download new Windows apps from Microsoft's Marketplace.
The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, incidentally, was reported on Wednesday to have hit the 12,000 mark, with 3,000 apps having been added during March.
Meanwhile, there are growing whispers that Windows 8 will set the next version of Internet Explorer – version 10 – as its default browser.
If, as is being calculated, Windows 8 will hit beta in September with a view to shipping in 2012, that would mean the quickest IE development turnaround in Microsoft's history, and would make IE9 the shortest-lived version of Microsoft's shrinking browser.
Speculation is already mounting that a pre-beta, show-and-tell version of Windows 8 will be on display for the company's partners at Microsoft's World Wide Partner conference in July.
Other features expected in Windows 8, according to slides leaked last year, include support for a tablet form factor, instant-on, and facial recognition.
When Windows 8 does arrive, one person who won't be pulling the Windows PC marketing levers will be Microsoft's über comms chief, Mich Matthews.
Microsoft's global head of marketing is stepping down after 22 years with the company, during which time Microsoft launched Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 on the desktop.
Each launch now follows a familiar monolithic format: global venues, white papers from paid analyses like IDC to "prove" its net value to local economies, and a desperate hunt for a table of features that justify not only your upgrading to the latest version of Windows but also buying the most expensive SKU.
Matthews said that she has not got another job, but wants to do something new.
The change comes after Microsoft said it was putting out a tender $1bn of its ad spend in the US. The incumbent on this portion of the business was the Interpublic Group of Universal McCann. ®

* sees strong Symbian portfolio in 2011, 2012 * to use over 1 GHz processors for Symbian

(Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) said it will continue to sell smartphones using its legacy Symbian software for a long time after its first phones using Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows go on sale.
Symbian is due to be replaced by Microsoft's Windows Phone over the coming two years under a plan announced in February, raising concerns Nokia could drop Symbian phones -- which have lost market share, but generate strong profits -- too early.
"We will be selling (Symbian) devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear," Purnima Kochikar, head of developer relations at Nokia, said in an open letter developers, published late on Friday.
Nokia has promised to introduce its first models using Windows Phone platform at the latest in 2012.
Nokia didn't specify how long it would continue to offer Symbian.
Earlier this week research firm Ovum forecast that Symbian phones will continue on some markets into 2016. Kochikar said coming Symbian models would focus on strong integration of services, as well as have faster processors than so far in the Symbian product line.
"Over the past weeks we have been evaluating our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we will have a strong portfolio of new products during our transition period -- i.e. 2011 and 2012," Kochikar said.
"They will also include improvements in hardware performance such as GHz+ processing capabilities and faster graphics speeds," she said.
Nokia's current top models, the N8 and the E7, use 680 MHz (megahertz) processors, while rivals top models already use 1 GHz (gigahertz) and faster processors.

* sees strong Symbian portfolio in 2011, 2012 * to use over 1 GHz processors for Symbian

(Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) said it will continue to sell smartphones using its legacy Symbian software for a long time after its first phones using Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows go on sale.
Symbian is due to be replaced by Microsoft's Windows Phone over the coming two years under a plan announced in February, raising concerns Nokia could drop Symbian phones -- which have lost market share, but generate strong profits -- too early.
"We will be selling (Symbian) devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear," Purnima Kochikar, head of developer relations at Nokia, said in an open letter developers, published late on Friday.
Nokia has promised to introduce its first models using Windows Phone platform at the latest in 2012.
Nokia didn't specify how long it would continue to offer Symbian.
Earlier this week research firm Ovum forecast that Symbian phones will continue on some markets into 2016. Kochikar said coming Symbian models would focus on strong integration of services, as well as have faster processors than so far in the Symbian product line.
"Over the past weeks we have been evaluating our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we will have a strong portfolio of new products during our transition period -- i.e. 2011 and 2012," Kochikar said.
"They will also include improvements in hardware performance such as GHz+ processing capabilities and faster graphics speeds," she said.
Nokia's current top models, the N8 and the E7, use 680 MHz (megahertz) processors, while rivals top models already use 1 GHz (gigahertz) and faster processors.