I have been holding back from doing a review of the X10 Mini Pro until it gets the Android 2.1 update that Sony Ericsson promised. This is so I don’t have to do an updated review after the main one. However, I keep having the urge to write about this little guy, as it is a device that grows on you day after day and shines better and better.

Compact size
The Mini Pro is very, very compact. Usually, when you see the tag “mini” on a phone, it just denotes that this is a smaller version of a bigger device. In this case, the Mini Pro is not just smaller; it is a real mini.

Because of its size, it is the first touchscreen smartphone that I can vouch for as 100% usable with one hand. Whipping out the Mini Pro for use does not require the clumsiness of two-handed use that most others do today.

Even with the QWERTY keyboard slid out, I am able to type one-handed (of course, I have big hands), though its a little more work than using two hands. But the fact that its doable at all is a miracle.

Feel
Again, due to the compact size, shape and the materials used, the Mini Pro feels very good in the hand. The back of the device has a very solid feeel and a nice curve (Sony Ericsson calls it “Human Curvature”).

Very usable QWERTY keyboard
One would think that a device this small could never provide a usable QWERTY keyboard. Wrong. The keyboard is quite good and I am able to crank out text with almost no mistakes. It has no dedicated numeric keys though, as it has only four (4) rows, but that is forgivable on a device this small and with the good performance of the keyboard.

So, how about that 2.55″ display?
The display is not super-sharp but it certainly shows blacks very deep. Being capacitive, it is very sensitive and you can tap and swipe with minimum effort. I haven’t faced any usability problems from the screen size. Rather, it works very well partly because Sony Ericsson thought things out.

Because of the small display, Sony Ericsson wisely chose to customise the homescreen to make it user-friendly for the size. They did a good job. There are four large icons in the corners of the homescreen. You can set your favourite apps to these slots.

During ongoing calls, the same concept of large icons at the four corners is utilised to provide you in-call options.

Widgets can be placed on the homescreen, which has multiple desktop pages. Because of the display size, only one widget can be placed on each desktop page, though you can have as many pages as you desire.

Email
Sure, if Google’s Android cannot handle email exceptionally, what other platform can? Okay, I hear you say “BlackBerry”. Good enough. But the Mini Pro’s email handling is top-notch.

My mails regularly arrive on my device faster than they show up on my PC. I am talking of instantenous email. That’s as good as BlackBerry does. Okay, okay, minus the data compression that Blackberry offers.

Camera Performance
If you have seen the Mini Pro camera samples that I published earlier, you know that getting the Mini Pro for the camera alone is a good deal.

Colours are sharp and bright. Details are fine. Auto-focus is fast. The camera simply rocks. Permit me to point you to a thread on Esato where pictures taken with the Mini pro will blow your mind: Post your pictures/videos taken with SE X10 Mini/Pro.

It is undoubtedly one of the better 5 megapixel cameraphones out there.

Audio Quality and Loudness
The X10 Mini Pro’s speakers are good – both in terms of quality and loudness. Again, this is amazing for a device this small.

Conclusions
There are many other aspects of the Mini Pro that I haven’t touched in this mini-review. That is because this is not my full review yet. You can be sure that all bases will be covered in the full review.

Honestly, I really, really like the Xperia X10 Mini Pro. It is a powerful, compact and usable device that gets the job done. The Mini Pro is proof of the saying “bigger is not necesarilly better”.

When Sony Ericsson said “mini but mighty“, they weren’t kidding.

NaijaPapers is a simple Android application that functions like a news aggregator. Basically, it extracts news items from Nigerian newspaper websites for consumption on Android smartphones.

On the Android Market, the introduction reads:

Keep in touch with current affairs in Nigeria.

Naija Papers provides android users with access to current news articles in Nigerian newspapers.

The app is very simple. On launching it, you are presented with headlines of news items from newspapers, including PM News, Vanguard, Niger Delta Standard, the Guardian, and the Daily Trust.

There are four (4) navigation buttons at the bottom of each page letting you return home, one page back, one page forward, and the last page.

Tap a news headline and you should be able to read a limited excerpt, with the option to click a link to the full news item on the newspaper website. I said “should” because sometimes it works, and other times, you get a message like “Article could not be extracted” or “We’re sorry, the page you requested was not found. You may wish to try again later or return to application HOME”.

Inspite of the occasional hiccups, the app has a high utility factor, even if all the user is able to access are news headlines only and nothing more. It is a good way of staying in the loop of current affairs. I suspect that I am going to be using it a lot.

Hmmm… I wonder if the developer can add Mobility Nigeria to the catalogue of news sources…

NaijaPapers is available on the Android Market and is free. Simply search for the name and download to your device.

Kudos to Ajilex. You can mail your feedback on this app to naijapapers[@]gmail.com.

If you have been following the Tech blogosphere all this while, you might have caught whims of the fabled Windowsphone 7 live conference which was rumoured to hold on October 11th. Yes, it is really true and it is now also official! Microsoft got in touch with the Engadget team yesterday, and asked them to very kindly “save the date” October 11 for a 2pm London press conference (9AM ET for Americans) that will last all the way until 5.30pm.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is old news. But we now have Windowsphone 7 in shining armour to the rescue. I should definitely follow this conference live to bring reports. Many upcoming smartphones with WindowsPhone 7 OS are likely to be announced during the Conference. Many independent sources proclaimed that October 21st is the date for the WindowsPhone 7 European launch, while the US launch will take place on 8th November.

With what we’ve seen on the internet with respect to the user interface of WP7 along with its enterprise completeness as a platform, maybe Microsoft have corrected their previous lackluster Windows mobile experience. As they say, twice is a charm. Windowsphone 7 may just save the day for Microsoft in the mobile OS sector!

Sources: Engadget.com, Gsmarena.com

When you think you’ve seen it all, someone else drops in with a winning streak. RIM, makers of Blackberry have jumped into the tablet game with a stunning device – the Playbook.

Here’s the body of RIM’s press release:

San Francisco, CA – BlackBerry DEVCON 2010 – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today redefined the possibilities for mobile computing with the unveiling of its new professional-grade BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® Tablet OS.

Perfect for either large organizations or an “army of one”, the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers. The incredibly powerful and innovative BlackBerry PlayBook is truly a game-changing product in the growing tablet marketplace.

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world’s most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia.”

The Tablet You’ll Want to Take Everywhere
This beautifully designed and incredibly powerful tablet is ultra portable, ultra thin and super convenient for both work and play. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a vivid 7” high resolution display that looks and feels great in your hand. With such a unique mix of utility, performance and portability, you’ll want to take it everywhere.

The New Benchmark in Tablet Performance

At its heart, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a multitasking powerhouse. Its groundbreaking performance is jointly fueled by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS which supports true symmetric multiprocessing. Together, the abundant processing power and highly sophisticated OS enable the BlackBerry PlayBook to provide users with true multitasking and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen experience for apps and content services.

Uncompromised Web Browsing
With support for Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, Adobe® Mobile AIR® and HTML-5, the BlackBerry PlayBook provides customers with an uncompromised, high-fidelity web experience and offers them the ability to enjoy all of the sites, games and media on the web. For more than a decade, the mobile industry has worked to bridge the gap between the “real web” and mobile devices through various apps and technologies and, in fact, a significant number of mobile apps today still simply serve as a proxy for web content that already exists on the web. The BlackBerry PlayBook closes that gap and brings the real, full web experience to mobile users while also opening new and more exciting opportunities for developers and content publishers.

High Performance Multimedia
The BlackBerry PlayBook features premium multimedia features to support high-quality mobile experiences. It includes dual HD cameras for video capture and video conferencing that can both record HD video at the same time, and an HDMI-out port for presenting one’s creations on external displays. The BlackBerry PlayBook also offers rich stereo sound and a media player that rivals the best in the industry. 

BlackBerry Integration
For those BlackBerry PlayBook users who carry a BlackBerry smartphone*, it will also be possible to pair their tablet and smartphone using a secure Bluetooth® connection. This means they can opt to use the larger tablet display to seamlessly and securely view any of the email, BBM™, calendar, tasks, documents and other content that resides on (or is accessible through) their smartphone. They can also use their tablet and smartphone interchangeably without worrying about syncing or duplicating data. This secure integration of BlackBerry tablets and smartphones is a particularly useful feature for those business users who want to leave their laptop behind.

Enterprise Ready
Thanks to the seamless and secure Bluetooth pairing experience and the highly secure underlying OS architecture, the BlackBerry PlayBook is enterprise ready and compatible (out-of-the-box) with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. When connected over Bluetooth, the smartphone content is viewable on the tablet, but the content actually remains stored on the BlackBerry smartphone and is only temporarily cached on the tablet (and subject to IT policy controls). With this approach to information security, IT departments can deploy the BlackBerry PlayBook to employees out-of-the-box without worrying about all the security and manageability issues that arise when corporate data is stored on yet another device.

QNX Neutrino Reliability
The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture, one of the most reliable, secure and robust operating system architectures in the world. Neutrino has been field hardened for years and is being used to support mission-critical applications in everything from planes, trains and automobiles to medical equipment and the largest core routers that run the Internet.  The new BlackBerry Tablet OS leverages and builds upon the many proven strengths of this QNX Neutrino architecture to support a professional grade tablet experience and to redefine the possibilities for mobile computing.

An OS Built for Developers
The Neutrino based microkernel architecture in the BlackBerry Tablet OS delivers exceptional performance, high scalability, Common Criteria EAL 4+ security, and support for industry standard tools that are already familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers.  The OS is fully POSIX compliant enabling easy portability of C-based code, supports Open GL for 2D and 3D graphics intensive applications like gaming, and will run applications built in Adobe Mobile AIR as well as the new BlackBerry® WebWorks™ app platform announced today (which will allow apps to be written to run on BlackBerry PlayBook tablets as well as BlackBerry smartphones with BlackBerry® 6). The BlackBerry Tablet OS will also support Java enabling developers to easily bring their existing BlackBerry 6 Java applications to the BlackBerry Tablet OS environment.

Key features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook include:

• 7″ LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording 
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
  o Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
  o Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

Availability
The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.

Here is the official release preview:

The Playbook sure looks interesting and has all the trappings of a winner. But we shall see how it all plays out when the device hits the streets.

Credits: Thanks to deoladoctor for the bump!

The Mobility Nigeria phone store sells and delivers medium and high end phones and smartphones to individuals and organisations across Nigeria.

Here are a few reasons why you should patronise the Mobility Nigeria phone store –

1. place your order with convenience and have it delivered to you anywhere in Nigeria
2. for special occassions such as your loved ones’ birthdays, we can package your order to taste and even include a specially worded message and deliver on your behalf
3. enjoy standard manufacturer’s warranty with documentation
4. enjoy the benefit of upgrading your phone by trading it in for a newer model (we provide details below, so read on)
5. our team of consultants will help you narrow your choices down to the best 3 devices suited to your needs and budget (mail: mobility[@]mobilitynigeria.com)

How our Trade-in service works

If you change your phone regularly, say one to three times a year, you should be buying from the Mobility Nigeria phone store. When you purchase a new phone from our phone store, one of the benefits you enjoy is that of upgrading your purchased phone once a year by trading it in for a newer model.

How It Works

• only phones purchased from Mobility Nigeria qualify for our upgrade service, so you start by making a purchase from our phone store
• upgrades can be effected not earlier than 180 days from date of purchase, and not later than 365 days from date of purchase
• phones for upgrade must be in good condition with no functional or hardware faults/defects, with sales pack and all accessories intact
• phones for upgrades will be examined for faults and if qualified will be costed at 40% of the prevailing market price
• you will pay the difference in cost of the valued phone and the new phone of choice
• phones that have been discontinued by their manufacturers are not eligible for the trade-in service

Our Credibility

It is only natural to be concerned about doing business via a delivery-only service. Dealing with real flesh and blood seems safer. Yet, you have no need to worry.

Our integrity is our strongest asset. Mobility Nigeria is owned and overseen by one of the most prominent online personalities in Nigeria, Mr. Yomi Adegboye. He is Managing Partner at DomainStandard Networks (since 2003), the major shareholder and Managing Director of Alireta Nigeria Limited (since 2008), one of the top 10 webhosts in the country.

Mr. Adegboye has become an institution in himself and personally guarantees that when ordering from Mobility Nigeria, you are in trusted hands.

Mobility Nigeria has delivered to places as far away as Maiduguri, Owerri and Abuja and transacted with both individuals and business entities.

Feel free to mail any enquiries to mobility[@]mobility.com.ng and we will get back to you with honest answers. If you are ready to get on the train right away, do visit our phone store right away to place your order!

Samsung West Africa (SEWA) today makes history as they launch the Samsung Developers Contest. It is Nigeria’s first ever Mobile Applications development contest. The purpose is to help Nigeria take its place as a technology giant able to develop mobile applications that are relevant and useful within the Nigeria context.

This is an exciting follow up to Emmanuel Okoegwale’s call for industry
support from handset manufacturers during the 1st ever MobiFEST in August, 2010.

For more information kindly visit the website link: www.samsungnigeriaappscontest.com

There was an interesting pie chart I that caught my interest of late on the web. As the Chineese proverb goes, “A picture speaks a thousand words”. So what better way to illustrate what I want to say than with a picture?

Recently, I saw an interesting analysis of worldwide mobile phone sales – both in sales units and in profits at GearLog and CNN’s Fortune Tech.

The diagram above shows the units of mobile phone sold by Apple and other handset manufacturers from the periods between January to June 2010. Apple iPhones’ unit sales is the tiny thin red sliver in the pie chart and it shows that Apple sold 17 million phones in this period. While Nokia, Samsung and LG combined sold about 400 million handsets in the same period of time.

Maybe one can argue that Apple is just one company with one OS/product (ios) which is essentially the iPhone while the other manufacturers are multiple companies with multiple models. Nokia, Samsung and LG which make up the Blue slice on the other hand with a plethora of models easily overwhelm the iPhone sales with 400 million units in sales. In addition Nokia, Samsung and LG are the worlds’ 3 largest phone manufacturers in the world! Even with this, the difference is however still quite staggering.

Now let’s look at the second pie chart and the information we generate would suddenly become very interesting. The colours are still the same. Apple is red, and Nokia, Samsung and LG combined are still blue, with others in green.

This second pie chart depicts profits made by handset manufacturers over that same period of time. Apple is seen to suddenly take up a whopping 39 percent of industry profits! This is 7% more than Nokia, Samsung, and LG combined! And to crown it all, it is also a full 10% more than the rest of the industry (Others=29%) combined.

If I am asked which Business model to choose from, I’d definitely choose Apple. This is clearly any investor’s dream. The Cupertino Company is obviously raking in the cash as its competitors struggle to post any profit at all. In light of the above, Steve Jobs does not need to look for any interesting statistics the next time he addresses another Apple special event.

Well, well, welll. What do you know? Turns out there’s a Yahoo phone? I ran into an article on Wap Review that carried news of the device. From the article:

Yahoo VP of Product Management Irv Henderson revealed the existence of a “Yahoo phone” which is now available now in Indonesia. The Alcatel branded Yahoo One Touch Net is a mid-range feature phone with a QWERTY form factor resembling a BlackBerry. It has a sub $100 unsubsidized price and is made by Hong Kong’s TCT Mobile Limited , a join venture between Alcatel-Lucent and TCL Communication of China. The Yahoo Phone uses the Opera Mini Browser and runs Java ME games and apps. It has a 2MP camera, Bluetooth, 2.5G (Edge) connectivity and an optical track pad. There are apps or links for Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Contacts, Calendar, the Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Search with Voice, Yahoo Social Pulse and Flickr.

Read the complete article over at Wap Review – Mobile 2.0 Business Day – The Yahoo Phone and Innovation From Africa and Asia

More information about the Yahoo Phone is available on the Alcatel Mobile phones website.

I am wondering if we will ever see this in Nigeria. Alcatel phones are no longer in circulation here as they used to be years back.

It is looking like the widespread uptake of Glo’s recently announced Glo Infinito voice tariffs is beginning to take its toll on network integrity.

In the last few days, it looks like it has gotten more common to be told “Sorry, your call cannnot be completed now. Please try again later” when attempting a call.

In addition, from around 9.00 p.m. daily, getting and maintaining an internet connection becomes problematic at our end here. This is a phenomenon that was peculiar to MTN internet before now.

While less common, we have also faced internet connectivity issues during the day time as well. Speeds have dropped too.

Whether this is a fallout of Glo Infinito uptake or not, it needs to be addressed. I used to confidently tell people that Glo High Speed Internet was the most stable mobile internet service around. That is looking like a thing of the past.

What has your experience with voice, SMS and mobile internet on Glo been since the new Glo Infinito tariffs came into effect?

We have a U.S.-used unlocked BlackBerry 9630 Tour for sale. It is in good-as-new new condition, and has no physical or performance flaws/faults.

Available accessories:

1. Battery
2. Charger

Current market price for brand new boxed device is: N67, 000.00

Initial bid price is: N35, 000.00

You can submit your bid by posting in the comments section. Please include your GSM number, so that we can contact you if necesarry.

The highest bid for each device wins. If there is only one bidder on a device, that individual wins.

Bidding is open to individuals based anywhere within the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

• Preferred bidders must pay for and collect the specific phone from our office in Ojodu (not Ogudu), Lagos within 48 hours of announcement of a winner.
• Alternatively, a successful bidder resident outside Lagos can pay by bank deposit into a designated bank account and also arrange for the phone to be sent to him by courier at his own cost and bearing all risks associated with delivery.
• If a preferred bidder fails to meet the deadline, the next highest bidder will be contacted to pick up the particular phone.

The bidding is now on.

Heads up, guys – the new internet rates from MTN that you’ve been waiting for are here.

• Text “104″ to 131 for 10MB @ N100/day
• Text “105″ to 131 for 25MB @ N400/week
• Text “106″ to 131 for 100MB @ N1000/month

Out of bundle rate is now 5 kobo per KB.

Many people actually seem to consider it news that Android OS will overtake mobile operating systems made by Research In Motion (RIM), Apple and Microsoft to occupy the second position after Symbian OS.

Of course, when organisations like Gartner and IDC speak, the information carries some weight.

Yet, this information is old news to us here at MobilityNigeria. A full year ago, I already made that same projection in my article, Battle of the Mobile Operating Systems.

From my October 2009 article:

I submit that Symbian is likely to remain the dominant mobile OS for a long time. Current trends suggest that Android will take the 2nd place quickly.

One of the advantages that Symbian has is what will help Android achieve this feat. Both Symbian and Android are licenced by numerous manufacturers, some of which are adding layers of services, functionality and usabilty to the underlying operatiing systems.

From Gartner in September 2010:

Communication service providers’ (CSPs’) marketing and vendor support for Android-based smartphones will drive the platform to become the second-largest platform, following Symbian, by year-end 2010 (see Table 1). This is almost two years earlier than Gartner predicted a year ago.

From IDC in September 2010:

Symbian will maintain its leading position, while continuing to slowly lose market share. BlackBerry’s market share is projected to be almost flat (though, because of the overall growth of the smartphone market, RIM will see device shipment numbers increase). Android will overtake BlackBerry and reach second position, possibly posing a threat to Symbian in the (very) long run. Windows Mobile (or rather, Windows Phone) is expected to regain a bit of the market share it has lost in the past few years.

Of course, it isn’t as if this is the first time that these research organisations have projected that the competition is between Symbian and Android. It is the hype around the news that is surprising to me. People are acting like this is really, really, really news.

Well, it isn’t.

For sure, Gartner and IDC are giving us projected figures, and in my opinion that is a risky exercise. Those figures are not likely to pan out. But there is no doubt that the top two mobile Operating Systems for a while will be Symbian and Android in first and second place respectively.

I remember that someone questioned my position earlier and I replied him, “I will be glad to tell you, I told you so“.

In my October 2009 article, I mentioned the fact that the other operating systems are generally mono-products – iPhones are manufactured by only Apple; Blackberries are manufactured by only RIM, and Palm devices by only Palm. Bada OS devices are made by only Samsung for now.

To expect the battle to turn out otherwise does not make sense, unless there is a policy shift by one or more of the others.

And those screaming that Symbian is dead are living in denial. Symbian is selling more and more devices with each passing year. Plus, Symbian still sells more devices than most of the other platforms put together. How can these indices be interpreted in any way as death throes?

Personally, I have issues with Symbian, as do many others. But that does not translate to Symbian dying. For the records, I have issues with Android and iOS too – and I know that many others do too.

Before WebOS, Palm was dying. They were selling less and less. That was dying. Symbian is alive and well, people. Sales are up. Read the figures. The figures don’t lie.

As for Windowsphone 7, it is not here yet and I won’t place any bets on that platform yet. Once it arrives and we see how the river flows, I’ll have much to say. In the meantime, here is a summary of where I stand:

Fact: Symbian will lead for years to come.

Fact: Android, not iOS, will be Symbian’s main competitor. iOS never was a competition to Symbian. It is not likely that it will ever be. Even today as I type this, iOS is not number two. Blackberry is.

Possibility: Some day, Android may overtake Symbian as the king of the mobile jungle.

Fact: All others except for Windowsphone 7 remain niche platforms, being limited to only one manufacturer per OS unlesss and until a policy shift happens.

So is it news that Android will be the platform to compete with Symbian for the number one spot in mobile OS market? Nope. Old news. I took that for granted a year ago. Still, it is good to see that others in the industry see things clearly too.