Purchase Motorola Motonav TN765T 5.1-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator With Lifetime Traffic Unbelievalbe – IT EVEN READS YOU YOUR TEXT MESSAGES!!!
I received this product recently and I can honestly say that there is no other GPS in the market that even comes close to what the TN765t does. The widescreen display give me more to view, the interface is amazing, and it has super helpful features like traffic, Google search, and Bing for things like stock quotes and sports scores.
The first thing you’ll notice when you start up the unit is the amazing brightness and clarity of the 5.1 widescreen. There’s no other display like it in the industry – it reminds me more of a the graphics you see on the iPhone than, say, on a 1980’s video game console. The display projects amazing clarity for items such as 3D buildings, so when you’re driving through a city, the actual buildings are visible on the screen. Or..if you’re driving through the mountains, as I was recently, the physical dimensions of the mountain tops are actually displayed as you drive. I’ve never seen anything else like this.
The interface is completely different than any other GPS I’ve seen. It has sliding panels that you can keep out as you drive, or make disappear. The panels show things like upcoming traffic, points of interest, or a birds eye areal view your drive. For searching, just tap the center of the screen and type the address..all in one place, and it finds it for you. Or, press the Google button and it searches Google on the internet to find your location. So there’s no limit to the amount of places this thing stores!
But by far the coolest feature is that it actually reads you your text messages! While I was driving my wife texted me, and the message actually appeared on the screen (you must be connected via bluetooth) – and the unit actually read the message to me! If that’s not all, it gave me an option to respond from a menu of preloaded responses. I selected “I’m driving, I’ll call you back” by pressing the menu choice on the screen and that exact text message was sent back to my wife. Unbelievable!!!
And if that’s not all…it uploads your phone book from your mobile phone and you can actually call your friends by talking to the GPS. Just press the voice recognition button and say “Call contact…John Smith” and it will make the call and project the call through it’s very loud speakerphone.
There’s no doubt this is a high end device – at $329.99, it’s not for everyone. But if you’re looking for the best technology available – this is definitely it. Highly recommended! Read More About Motorola Motonav TN765T 5.1-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic
The first time you use an Android phone, one thing becomes immediately clear: You’re not in Cupertino anymore.
Android, as recent Verizon commercials remind us, is the antithesis of Apple’s celebrated handset: It’s open source, fully customizable, and free from unexplained app rejections. If the iPhone is Apple’s inalterable masterpiece, the Android platform is Google’s open canvas. The palette is in your hands; it’s up to you to add color.
We’ve assembled 40 tips and tricks to help you make the most of your Android phone. Some are specific to Android 2.0 or later, but most apply to any Android-based device. And not one of these tricks requires you to jailbreak anything.
So grab your phone, and get started–it’s time for you to become a certified Android master.
Optimize Your Home Screen
Add to Home screen
1. Make the most of your space by using widgets–dynamic programs that operate right on your home screen. Simply hold your finger on any open space, and then select Widgets from the pop-up menu. Widgets come in a huge variety of sizes and functions, so search the Android Market to find what works for you.
2. Prefer not to be bothered by a sound every time an e-mail arrives? Head into Gmail’s Settings menu and set its ringtone to Silent. You’ll still see new-message alerts in the notification panel at the top of your screen, and you can always pull the panel down to get detailed information. You can configure text messaging and other alert-generating apps the same way.
3. Set up one-touch dialing for the people you call the most. Hold your finger on an open space and select Shortcuts. Then, touch Direct dial and pick the person from your contact list. If one-touch texting is what you crave, use the Direct message option instead.
4. To drop your favorite Web pages onto your home screen, long-press on any site in your browser’s bookmarks and then select the Add shortcut to home option.
5. Try using folders to keep your home screen organized. Long-press on a blank space and select Folders to create one. You can then drag and drop frequently used contacts, apps, or other shortcuts into it to cut down on clutter. To rename a folder, press and hold the folder’s title bar while it’s open.
Get Around Android
Astro
6. Make file management a snap with a utility such as Astro, which allows you to browse through your phone just as you would a computer, navigating directories and moving or deleting files at will.
7. Need to cut and paste text? Long-press on any text input area. If you’re on a Web page, tap the Menu key and use the Select text option.
8. Use Android’s hotkeys to do everything from zooming in to a Web page to opening a program. Check out our complete list of Android keyboard shortcuts to learn them all.
9. You can set your own hotkeys to open apps, too. Head into the main Settings menu, select Applications, and then choose Quick Launch to get started.
10. If the on-screen keyboard pops up when you don’t want it, touch it and swipe downward to make it disappear.
11. You can see the current date at any time by touching your finger to the top-left corner of the screen.
Stay Connected
12. To load files onto your Android phone, plug the handset into your PC and pull down the notification panel. Tap the USB connected box, and then tap Mount when the confirmation dialog box appears. Your phone will appear as a hard drive on your PC, and you can then drag and drop files as you wish.
13. Manage your music–and even import your iTunes playlists–with DoubleTwist, a free PC-based utility. The program’s intuitive interface makes Motorola’s Media Link offering look like a bloated relic.
Double Twist
14. Sync your Outlook calendar with your phone without the hassle. Install Google Calendar Sync and let it do the work for you.
15. To sync your Outlook contacts without using an Exchange server, try GO Contact Sync, an open-source utility for your PC.
16. Stay up to speed with your feeds with the help of NewsRob, a handy app that syncs your phone with your Google Reader account.
17. Want to have your PC’s browser bookmarks on your Android phone? Download MyBookmarks from the Market to import them.
Power Up Your Phone
18. Get extra calling power by integrating Google Voice into your phone. Once you’ve signed up for an account, download the official app and watch your options expand. Bonus tip: Add the Google Voice widget to your home screen for one-touch toggling of your outgoing-call preferences.
19. You can send text messages for free through Google Voice–everything you need is in the app. Just make sure you change the settings to refresh every 5 minutes so that incoming messages won’t be delayed. If you want faster notifications, log in to the Google Voice Website and configure your account to send you e-mail alerts when a new text arrives.
20. Get unbilled talk time by using Fring, a free mobile chat client for Android. Fring lets you make calls over Google Talk, Skype, and any SIP calling service.
21. Cut down on calling headaches by using the free Dial Zero app to call the companies you do business with. It lets you bypass annoying phone trees and get right to human representatives.
22. Keep annoying callers away by routing them directly to your voicemail. First, open the offending person’s profile in your contacts list. Then, press the Menu button, tap Options, and check the Incoming calls box.
23. The Incoming Calls screen also holds the option for setting custom ringtones for callers. Tap Ringtone and change each person’s tune as you wish.
Dolphin Browser
24. Want to use your own MP3 files as ringtones? No problem: Make a new folder on your memory card and name it ringtones. Copy your MP3s there, and they will automatically show up in your selection list. Folders called alarms or notifications will do the same thing for those respective functions.
25. Check out the free app RingDroid. With it, you can easily edit an MP3 file to grab a precise segment of a song for a ringtone or system sound.
26. Android lets you keep multiple browser windows open at the same time. Long-press any Web link to open it in a new window. Tap the Menu key while in the browser to toggle between windows.
27. Prefer seeing Web pages in landscape mode? You can tell Android to always display sites that way. Select the Landscape-only display checkbox in the browser’s Settings menu.
28. Android’s built-in browser isn’t your only option. Try Dolphin Browser for cool features such as tabbed browsing, gesture-driven commands, and multitouch zooming (yes, even on the Droid).
Secure Your Smartphone
29. Android includes an option to use simple patterns to secure your phone; to unlock the handset, you swipe your finger across the screen in a specific pattern. Look for Screen Unlock Pattern under ‘Location and Security’ in the main System Settings menu.
30. Want to back up your phone’s data? Try MyBackup, which saves your apps, contacts, call logs, texts, and even settings to either your SD Card or a secure Internet server. You might also like SMS Backup, which periodically saves all of your texts into your Gmail account.
31. For even more protection, download Mobile Defense. The app allows you to use a PC to track your phone via GPS, remotely lock it, and then back up and wipe all of your data.
Add Essential Apps
Adobe Photoshop Mobile
32. If you handle a lot of Office files, Documents To Go may be just the thing for you. The free version gives you the ability to view Word and Excel files. The full paid version adds editing capabilities, along with PDF and PowerPoint viewing options.
33. Prefer working in the cloud? Get your hands on GDocs or ThinkFree Mobile Office, both of which make it a cinch to connect with your Google Docs documents.
34. If basic note-taking is all you need, download a PC-synced notepad such as GDocs Notepad With Sync. It saves documents directly into your Google Docs account for easy access.
35. For on-the-go photo editing, Adobe’s Photoshop.com Mobile app is tough to beat–and it’s free, too.
36. Jazz up your Android music experience with TuneWiki, which automatically finds and scrolls lyrics next to your songs as they play. Plus, it gives you access to Internet radio streaming and some cool community-sharing features.
Customize Your Phone Completely
37. Adjust how your phone acts by using Locale. The app lets you set custom profiles for practically any circumstance–having your ringer shift to silent when you’re at work, for example, or making your screen glow brighter at night.
38. Take full advantage of your phone’s LED by installing Missed Call, which configures your phone’s light to flash specific colors when calls from certain people slip by.
39. Edit Android’s custom dictionary to include your name and other proper nouns. That way, they’ll pop up in the auto-complete list as you type. Look under Language and keyboard settings in System Settings to get started.
40. If you try an Android app and decide that you don’t like it, return it. The Android Market will give you a full refund for up to 24 hours after any purchase, provided that you haven’t tried to return the same app before.
My dad busted his cell phone a few weeks back (or so we thought.. more on this later) and we needed to get him a quick, cheap phone. After searching everywhere we picked out the MotoFone F3 from Motorola. We got it new for $30.00 from E-Bay.
MotoFone F3
I would recommend this phone to anyone who needs a cheap but sturdy phone for everyday use. It would also be a wonderful phone for parents to give kids because of the simplistic nature of the phone. There’s no web, no pictures, and it’s even hard to send/receive text messages.
The MotoFone is very very durable and uses an E-Ink display that doesn’t use any glass. This means you can drop it, step on it, and nothing happens outside of a few scratches.
Motorola MotoFone F3’s Website
The aesthetics of this phone are not bad, it looks like a Motorola SLVR. I actually have the L9 and love it for the camera and high res screen. The F3 on the other hand does not have a camera and only has a monochrome screen. While using the phones most onlookers would not be able to tell the difference.
Video review of the Motorola MotoFone F3
Let’s not forget the E-Ink display that maximizes the battery life and is very easy to read in nearly any light (indiglow backlight).. Construction of the phone is good, call quality is better than I expected too. I give this phone 2 thumbs up and my dad loves it. So if you’ve got a child,parent, or just don’t feel like having all the bells & whistles then this phone is a smash hit!
The other morning I was riding the bus to work when it occurred to me that this is my TENTH year as a cell phone user! My, does time ever fly! I was thinking back on all of the different phones I’ve attached to my hip over those years – the good and the bad – when I thought that it would be neat to review each one of them in a post: My experiences with each, the nitty-gritty, the emotional attachment (le sigh!), etc. So switch your cell onto silent, and read on…
Nokia 5110
Removable faceplate?! Oh my!
Specs:
2G Network, GSM 900, Announced 1998 (mine acquired 2001)
132 x 47.5 x 31mm, 143 cubic cm, 170 grams (approx weight of a can of tuna)
Monochrome graphics, 5 text lines (Dynamic font sizes, Softkey, Welcome message)
Downloadable Monophonic ringtones, 6 ringtone levels, 10 volume levels
Memory: Phonebook: Sim only; Call records:8 dialed, 5 received, 5 missed
Battery: Ultra Slim Battery: 600 mAh, Li-Polymer, 127 g; 40-180h standby, 2-3h20m talk OR Slim Battery: 900 mAh, Li-Ion, 143 g, 60-270h standby, 3-5h talk Features: SMS messaging, 3 games (Memory, Snake, Logic), Removable faceplates, Alarm, comes in 28 languages
Awe, my first phone. It was an upgraded Christmas gift when I turned sixteen. I initially received a VCR to accompany the 13-inch television I got for my birthday a few weeks before. This phone revolutionized the market for personal mobile devices, and finally made it accessible to a wider range of customers than ever before. We all remember the parodies in sitcoms with the enormous grey cellular phones, heavy and about the size of the original Nintendo Gameboy. Finally there was a compact and portable option for those who wanted to look stylish, important, and tech-savvy. This was a fantastic first phone for me. It’s no-frills, self-explanatory (though I still can’t figure out for the life of me how the logic game works…irony), and customizable. I had two favourite faceplates which I alternated between – a white one with frogs and a shimmering colour-shifting gold-to-fuschia (which reminded me of a sunset). I later was stuck with this phone when my Vbox died. My parents had one until the analog network was phased out and they were forced to upgrade. Just saying. Though the battery life was incredibly exaggerated. Nokia claimed that you could potentially survive eleven days without recharging, whereas overall experience would suggest maybe eleven hours. I’d wager that the charge memory on the battery dropped by about 80% within the first year. My parents’ phone was always charged into the cigarette lighter in the car.
On Super Bowl Sunday while waiting for the big game to start I was bored out of my mind. Who gives a crap about all the pregame crap? I decided to take the plunge and root my phone. After a month of reading posts on forums like Alldroid, and Howards Forum I decided to go with SholesMod (now DroidMod). Thinking back, Rooting my Droid after drinking a few beers wasn’t the brightest idea but what the fuck. I followed all the instructions and watched as my phone scrolled through all the command prompts. I have to say, the process was painless and pretty fool proof. Now I’m not saying go ahead root your phone, nothing wrong can happen but it worked flawlessly. In a matter of minutes I was rooted and overclocked. Since that time I have unrooted and rerooted my device. Added Theme Rom overlays from Krazykrivda at Alldroid and used Metamorph as well. I have found the DroidMod theme to be stable but I am now getting ready to try out Cyanogen Sholes Mod. I’ll let you know how that goes in a few weeks. Until then, I highly recommend checking out DroidMod, at your own risk.
So last week, after a 3 year wait, TiVo FINALLY announced a new product offering in the way of the TiVo Premiere and the Premiere XL. The problem is that it presents very little in the way of innovation.
I think most people agree that cable company DVR’s are horrible. I was an avid TiVo subscriber from the initial launch. The smooth user interface, great remote and features such as season passes were amazing. The cable company DVR’s leave a lot to be desired. However, they are essentially free and the user experience continues to get better. I currently pay $11.95 for a Comcast Motorola HD dual-tuner DVR. That’s it. No cost for the box, just $11.95 a month. The TiVo Premiere requires a $299-$499 (depending on hard drive size) investment for the box, a $13.95 monthly service fee AND you still need to rent a cable card from your service provider to obtain HD content on it for about $7 a month. Not to mention that you have no access to your cable companies OnDemand programming when using a TiVo.
Another thing that threw me off about the new TiVo box is its lack of wireless networking. What?! Do people actually still use home landline telephone service? Yes, there is a wireless adapter available for an additional $100.00. That brings your initial out-of-pocket costs to right around $600.00, and that is before any monthly service fees!
TiVo does have several things going for it. First, they just announced this beautiful new remote. It features bluetooth and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Anyone who has done a search on any DVR can instantly recognize the beauty of this. But get this, it is not included in the box! The price has not been announced yet, but I’m guessing it will be in the $100.00 range. That just brought your total to $700.00. You could buy a car for that much money, or an iPad, or groceries for half a year!
The new TiVo Premiere interface. The new box provides support for Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand. Well, so did the old TiVo boxes. Nothing new here, except that they make it a bit more apparent. Honestly, I don’t see myself using these features a whole lot. I prefer the iTunes store on my Apple TV over Amazon’s offerings and until Netflix offers me more that a few obscure documentaries and B-Movies for viewing on demand, that is a lost cause as well.
Yes, TiVo is slick, beautiful, well functioning and somewhat innovative but they just cannot compete on the pricing field. Comcast is currently offering DVR boxes running the TiVo software in several test markets and I dream of the day when that program rolls out nationally. For now the price and lack of OnDemand access limit what this, or any other TiVo product will be able to achieve.
Reston, Va. – More people owned smartphones, listened to cellphone-stored music, and used their phone to access a social-networking site during the three months ending in January compared with the previous three months, a ComScore consumer survey found.
The survey also found that Research In Motion (RIM) increased its leading share of smartphone users during the period, although Google’s share of users rose the most. Apple’s share was almost flat.
The online survey of people ages 13 and older also found that Motorola leads in the number of consumers using its handsets, although that lead slipped sequentially during the latest three-month period.
For its monthly online surveys, ComScore polls more than 30,000 consumers, with a new sample surveyed every month. The company’s report, based on a three-month average, includes employer-issued phones as long as the phone was the respondent’s primary phone. For the latest three-month period, ComScore determined that 234 million Americans ages 13 and older were cellphone subscribers and that 22.9 percent of them used a Motorola phone (down 1.2 percentage points). LG ranked second in share of users at 21.7 percent (down 0.3 points), followed by Samsung with 21.1 percent (up 0.1 points), Nokia with 9.1 percent (down 0.2 points) and RIM with 7.8 percent (up 1.4 points). The relative brand ranks did not differ from the previous quarter’s ranks.
In another finding based on the surveys, ComScore determined an average 42.7 million people (or 18 percent of total cellphone subscribers) used a smartphone during the three-month period, up 18 percent from the previous three months. RIM extended its smartphone-share lead to 43 percent of all smartphone users, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter. Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 15.7 percent share (down 4 percentage points), Google with 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm with 5.7 percent (down 2.1 percent).
On average during the latest three-month period, 12.8 percent of phone users listened to cellphone-stored music (up 1.2 percentage points sequentially), 17.1 percent accessed a social-network site or blog (up 3.3 points), 19.8 percent used a downloaded app (up 1.5 points), 21.7 percent played cellphone-stored games (up 0.4 points), 28.6 percent used the phone’s browser (up 1.8 points), and 63.5 percent sent a text message (up 1.5 points).
