Category: Technology

Thanks to everyone who replied to my “I need a new phone” post. I decided to go for the Motorola V3x.

Yesterday while I was at the airport with Nat I saw a dark blue Motorolla Razr. I didn’t know what it was, it looked a bit thicker then the regular Motorola’s but it looked way cooler and it cost KD145. I didn’t think of it much until today while I was researching the V3i on Amazon and I found the V3x and recognized it as the phone I saw yesterday.

The V3x is a cool looking phone and I am getting the dark blue version since blue is my favorite color. It has a 2MP camera on the outside and a second camera on the inside for video calling since the phone also supports 3G. The resolution of the internal screen is 320 x 240 which is also pretty nice. I have only had one flip phone before in my life so it should be a nice change to own one now.

I just ordered the phone from Amazon since its around KD30 cheaper and it doesn’t come with the arabic keypad which I think makes the phone look ugly. Once I get it I will post a proper review of it.

I am currently using a Sony Ericsson K700i. To summarize my experience.. it sucks. The phone is buggy, sluggish and ugly. Recently its also been acting very strange like for example the down button would stop working or my call list would show that I called people whom I never did. Not only that but sometimes when my friends call it won’t show me their names just their numbers.. even though their names are on my phone. Its really starting to piss me off and so I need a new phone. My problem is I don’t like paying too much for a phone, you can call me cheap but I personally just don’t see myself paying a lot for phones. I still remember when the Sony Ericsson T610 got released and I forked out KD220 for it back then but those days are gone. Now my budget is KD100 or less.

What I need is the following:
– Bluetooth
– Good looks
– extremely responsive system
– No Nokia

Yesterday I saw the Samsung SGH-E530 (pictured above) and it looked pretty cool. Although I dislike Samsung the phone looked really slick, it had bluetooth, a beautiful colored screen on the inside and a gorgeous OLED screen on the outside. The price at the dealer was KD95 so I should be able to find it even cheaper outside. The problem is the phone is targetted towards woman which would make me very girlie. Another option I was considering was the Motorolla Razr, I haven’t done any research on it yet nor do I know how much it cosst but I will check on that later tonight. Can anyone recommend me a phone?

update: seems like the Treo 700P is launching this month, I am going to wait for it and check it out before I take my decision. [Link]

The other day I posted about bluetooth advertising and how if you are shopping in Sultan Center you can now receive ads on your phone. I like many of you had some concerns regarding this service and how easily it can turn into spam. Well someone from the company responsible for this bluetooth advertising commented the following:

Hi, I’ve been following your conversations regarding bluetooth. My company is actually implementing these bluetooth services in Kuwait and I’m always interested to hear what people have to say about it. I agree with everyone that spam is a major problem which is why when we put our network together we were sure to set non-spam parameters. If you reject the message once, you shouldn’t receive another request for at least a week. Also, no matter which location you go into, you shouldn’t receive more than 3 messages in a week. If this is not the case in any particular location it’s probably because we are doing testing and optimization. Within the next few months we hope to bring a number of services that you would actually find useful, so bear with us. I think you’ll be impressed.

I think the fact that its limited to 3 messages a week per person is a good thing. But the big problem is that I don’t think its possible for us to opt out of this service. This means anyone with a bluetooth phone is forced to receive 3 adverts a week. Sucks.

Update: Nibaq pointed out something very important regarding this bluetooth service. Read below:

Very interesting. So it registers your MAC address of your phone. Even though you aren’t accepting messages when the machine does a search it will regonize your phone and store it.

Spread these machines around town not sending anything but just registering phones and what do you have? A wonder tracking device.

Sultan can see how many times you visit the store in a month, and which stores. You can even track how long a customer is at the store.

Just another reason to have my bluetooh on Non Discoverable mode or simply off.

2.16 Intel Core Duo Processor
667 MHz front-side bus
Up to 2GB of RAM (667 MHz DDR@ SDRAM)
iSight Camera
MagSafe Power Adapter
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 PCI Express graphics 256MB
Firewire 800, Firewire 400
Bluetooth, Airport Extreme
$2799

Apple.com/macbookpro

Still waiting for the new ibooks..

Sultan Center just started a new form of advertising using bluetooth. If your phone’s bluetooth is on while you are shopping in Sultan Center you might get a animated ad sent to you by them. Its an interesting concept but I think its annoying more then its a good thing. The only way not to receive these ads is to turn your bluetooth off which is a hassel if you are gonna do this everytime you go shopping there. If you want to check out an example of an ad they sent my phone click [here]

This is a video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPod for the first time back in October 23, 2001. [Link]

You can also find other special Apple moments by clicking [here]

[source gizmodo]

I can’t wait for the K800i to get released, it has 3G, a 3.2MP camera and a web browser for viewing regular HTML websites. Its also has a second camera for video calls although I doubt I would ever use that. I am currently using the K700i which is really sluggish and buggy but when I got it, it was half the price of the K750i which I figured was a good deal. But ever since I bought the phone I have been regretting it. At least now I learned not to go stingy when it comes to buying a phone. [Link]

A few days ago a friend of mine was telling me about a new receiver that allows you to watch Orbit, Showtime and ART for free. Then yesterday I read an article in Campaign ME about how these companies are now worried this receiver will get popular and how they busted some guys selling it in Dubai. The way it works is the receiver connects online and downloads the latest codes the descramble the signals, its kinda like cables black box in the States. Anyone heard of this? I think the brand of the receiver is Starbox and sells for like KD100..

I have read a lot in forums on why Bose sucks but this is the first time I have actually seen an article on it. I found it via digg and its an interesting 2 part read in which the writer who is a sound system salesman discusses why Bose sucks without going into too much confusing tech talk. Its a good read for anyone who thinks Bose speakers are good or for anyone who is thinking of buying Bose stuff. [Link]

A point-and-shoot with 3200 ISO, sounds promising. If I see some cool sample shots at the high ISO’s I might just get one for myself.. although I am not a Fuji fan.. [Link]

Sultan Center are selling AstroBoy toy robots. The one in the picture above has a hand scanner that reads these special trading cards and in return they change the lights and noise he makes. And its cheap for only KD5!

Google has just launched a new service called “Google Mars” that lets you browse the martian land just as you would with Google Maps. [Link]

[source digg]

Introduction
In January I posted about my home theater setup and I mentioned I wanted to upgrade my aging old Kenwood receiver with something newer and better. Well a few days ago I passed by the Denon dealer in Salmiya to check out some AV Receivers and I ended up buying one. I did a lot of research online before I decided to upgrade my receiver and I came to the conclusion that for my budget and my needs, the Denon AVR-2106 fit the bill perfectly. I had previously seen the receiver when I tagged along with K.TheKuwaiti when he was getting a Denon for his living room and I remember the price was around KD175 since they were having discounts. So I passed by the Salmiya dealer and I looked around and I couldn’t find the Denon AVR-2106. I asked the salesman about it and he told me they were out of stock but he would check to see on the computer if any of the other branches had any left. Two minutes later he tells me he found one more piece left, but its the display model in the Hawalli branch. I am not good at price haggling at all, in-fact there is only one person I have ever met that was worse then me and thats TivoGuy, but I went ahead and asked the guy how much discount extra would he give me since it was the display model. He checked on his computer and told me the lowest he could give me the amp was for KD161. I was like stunned, I wasn’t planning on getting the receiver, I was just checking on the price, but now with this special price it was just soo fucking tempting to resist. So I tell the guy OK and he was like give me a minute to call the Hawalli branch and make sure they still have it. Five minutes later he comes back to me and tells me that the receiver they have in stock is actually not displayed and is still brand new in the box. I was like thats great but I still just want to pay KD161. The salesman laughed and said that wouldn’t be a problem since I was a good customer. I couldn’t believe what a good deal I was getting, I quickly paid the money and went and picked up the receiver from the Hawalli branch.

These lists represent the top camera makes and models used to create photos uploaded to Flickr, the best online photo sharing application in the world. The lists are generated automatically by periodically sampling the EXIF data from the stream of recent uploads. [Link]

(yay my camera is #1)

Nat wants us to take a cruise but due to the fact I get sea sick that will never happen. I could never last for days on end out in the sea, just thinking about it makes me dizzy. Now after seeing the Aeroscraft I think this is something I would definitely enjoy. [Link]

[source Digg]