Beamer, an iPhone case with a built-in LED light, will only be available for purchase if at least 500 people preorder it.
(Credit: Quirky.com)It's not like us to get too excited about an iPhone case, but this one shines--literally--because it's the very device I was wishing for last month while traveling in Europe.
This iPhone day shot of the Leaning Tower of Pisa turned out just fine, but my night shots didn't work at all. Beamer would have helped.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET)Beamer, as the name connotes, is an iPhone case with a built-in LED light you can turn on to use as both a flashlight and a camera flash. Just the thing I needed when I wanted to shoot the Leaning Tower of Pisa at night with my iPhone, having left my real camera back at our hotel.
And it sure would have helped in Paris when we returned at night to our historic apartment building and had to climb six flights up a pitch-black spiral staircase. (I did light the way with my iPhone, but this would have been much better.)
Beamer has a hard-plastic, two-piece design, equipped with a replaceable coin cell battery that provides about 10 hours of illumination. Pressing the silicone button once will turn the light on for 10 seconds. Pressing it twice in a row will leave it on indefinitely, or until you press it a third time. It comes in an array of bright colors.
The case is just the latest design from Quirky, a relatively new collaborative design community that also conceived of the super-cute DigiDude tripod and that cool Watt Time light-bulb shaped alarm clock.
In line with Quirky's crowd-sourced production model, the Beamer won't be available for consumers until 500 orders have been made, at which point those who have committed to buying it will be charged $32. Right now, 44 prospective Beamer owners have preordered.
Flixster sure didn't look this good on our BlackBerry Bold.
(Credit: Flixster)We were excited to hear that Flixster's popular iPhone movie app was making the jump to BlackBerry. Unfortunately, not all apps dive as elegantly into other mobile platforms. Flixster's Movies app is one of them.
The free Movies by Flixster app for BlackBerry has all the essentials: a tab for box office hits, an area to enter your Zip code to find movies near you, a list of upcoming titles, and movies that have come out on DVD. You can even purchase movies via movietickets.com. Yet this movie "app" is not so much a native application as it is a shortcut to a BlackBerry-optimized version of Flixster's mobile Web site.
While a nicely formatted mobile site routinely delivers a better experience than navigating the site through a browser, winding up with a not-app after downloading an application feels like a cheap trick. To top it off, Flixster Mobile looks like a mobile site on BlackBerry and reloads every screen as you navigate. In contrast, the iPhone version, pulls show times and theater information into a stylized interface that in no way resembles the Flixster.com site, apart from the information it downloads.
Users aren't fooled by the bait-and-switch, either. Flixster's movie app on BlackBerry rates 2.5 stars out of 129 votes at the time of writing. The program's average iPhone rating scores higher, with a 3.5-star average for the current version out of about 16,000 user reviews.
Come on, Flixster. We know you can do better than that.
The Droid doesn't do everything.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)One of the latest misconception to make its way around the blogspehere was that the Motorola Milestone features multitouch functionality whereas its Droid counterpart does not. As it turns out, Verizon's first Google Android smartphone does offer multitouch, just not in the same capacity. What's the difference and, more importantly, who made the decision to water down this feature for the Droid?
Made popular by the iPhone, pinching and pulling has become the preferred method for zooming in on a smart phone. While Verizon's Droid handset is built using the same Android 2.0 OS as the Milestone, users are left using a less-accurate double-tap.
The Milestone has multitouch built directly into the Android framework while the Droid relies on APIs that come with the 2.0 SDK. That means that it's up to app developers to implement the features.
For reasons unknown, however, Google hasn't integrated the capability into apps such as Google Maps. Though it could be added into future updates of select titles, the question remains: Who decided to leave basic multitouch off of Droid?
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It's been a few days since Opera unwrapped its latest beta browser for mobile phones, and we've had some more time to get acquainted. Opera Mobile 10 beta (download), which runs on certain Symbian Series 60 smartphones, adds some improvements to its password manager and has made a few tweaks under the hood. However, its most significant alterations are in its visual design. Bottom line: We like it, and we like how similar it is to Opera Mini 5 beta, a recent overhaul of the free Opera browser for Java phones.
There are some downsides with the version 10 beta browser that have cropped up--these go beyond the known issues and bugs. Opera's smartphone browser continues to struggle with accurately rendering complex pages. When zooming in on CNET Download.com on the Nokia N97, we saw text and graphics overlap. While Web sites often redirect to a URL optimized for mobile phones, we'd still like to see graphically rich pages rendered more faithfully in Opera Mobile on those that don't have specialized versions.
Its responsiveness was also an issue on the Nokia N97 test phone, but we suspect this has more to do with the device than with Opera. CNET reviewers dinged the Nokia N97 for its choice of an inconsistently responsive resistive touch screen instead of the capacitive touch screen that's found on the iPhone.
Even if you don't have a compatible Nokia, Samsung, or Sony Ericsson phone to test Opera Mobile 10 beta with yourself, you can watch our First Look video to see the new browser beta's features--its new tabs interface shines.
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Doom Classic brings the ancient, pixelated first-person shooter to the iPhone.
Welcome to today's episode of Recycling Old PC Games for Fun and Profit. Our first contestant: Doom Classic, the first-person shooter that spawned a thousand imitators, several hundred ports, and one horrendous movie.
Next up: Command & Conquer Red Alert, the real-time strategy classic responsible for a massive drop in global productivity.
In my youth I was a tremendous fan of both games, so it stands to reason that I'd welcome them to my iPhone. However, neither is getting a permanent home.
Let's start with Doom. While id Software's official port offers a pixel-perfect recreation, the game is 16 years old--and it shows.
Indeed, juxtaposed with Doom Resurrection, a made-for-iPhone game with 21st century graphics, Doom Classic looks positively ancient. It plays that way, too: You can't even jump.
Part of this is personal bias: I don't think FPS games work well on small screens, especially when touch controls are involved. For me, Doom Classic feels cramped, confined, and seriously out of date.
... Read moreConsumer demand for smartphones seems to be unstoppable.
In the third quarter, vendors shipped a record 43.3 million devices, up 4.2 percent from last year's third quarter and up 3.2 percent from this year's second quarter, says a report released Thursday by market researcher IDC.
(Credit:
IDC)
Among smartphone vendors, Nokia still enjoys the greatest market share, according to IDC, with a 37.9 percent slice for the third quarter. ... Read more
Slacker Radio on the Motorola Droid.
(Credit: Slacker Radio)It's been about a month since we got a peek at the first generation of the for the Android platform. We liked what we saw. On Thursday, other Android users can also cast their own vote about Slacker Radio 1.0 for Android by downloading it for free from the Market application on their Android smartphone.
Like Slacker Radio on other mobile platforms--and also similar to other streaming radio and music discovery apps like Pandora and Last.fm--the app lets you stream music from pre-programmed genres and stations, or from stations you set up yourself online. You'll be able to view album art and bios, block a song or vote it a favorite, and skip ahead--this is limited in the free version and limitless in the premium upgrade. Like what you hear? You can share a link to that station on SlackerRadio.com via e-mail, SMS, or MMS via .
Upgrading to the premium Radio Plus subscription service brings you song lyrics in addition to those unlimited skips and no ads.
While the upcoming version will more or less mirror this Android build, Slacker Radio on Android makes one feature unique--the Now Playing home screen widget that shows you what's playing now. The widget, which you install by giving the home screen a long press and selecting Slacker Radio from the Widgets list, is embedded with pause, skip, favorite, and blocking controls. However, it currently lacks the capability to change stations.
Motorola Droid owners can also grab Slacker Radio in the Verizon channel of the Android Market. Slacker Radio has optimized the Android app for the Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris, HTC G1, and HTC MyTouch.
Note: Last.fm and CNET share a parent company, CBS.
Correction: Updated 11/6 at 8:25 am. You can share a link to a station from Slacker Radio for Android, not a link to a particular song.
(Credit:
Sprint)
Verizon Wireless isn't the only one showing some BlackBerry love today. Following Verizon's announcement that it will bring the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 to its lineup on November 20, Sprint released a statement saying that it, too, will offer the Curve 8530.
Like the other models, the Curve 8530 includes features such a Wi-Fi, an optical trackpad, GPS, a 2-megapixel camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, among other things. In addition, it will support the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV.
Pricing and release date were not announced at this time, but interested customers can preregister for the device on Sprint's Web site. Sprint will offer the Curve 8530 in black, red, and royal purple.
HTC Droid Eris
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)When it rains it pours. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless opened the floodgates and unleashed a handful of cell phones and smartphones that should make their way into your hands just in time for the holiday shopping season. It looks like there's a little something for everyone, so let us know which you are most excited about in our comments section.
Here is a roundup of all of today's news:
Verizon's Droid Eris offers Android for less
Verizon introduces BlackBerry Curve 8530
LG Chocolate Touch is now official
Samsung's Convoy goes rugged
Verizon offers prepaid wireless for laptops
HTC Droid Eris
(Credit: Verizon Wireless)Perhaps Verizon Wireless is trying to scoop itself, but just as it's set to launch its hype-worthy Motorola Droid, the carrier took the wraps off its second Google Android phone, the Droid Eris. The Eris, made by HTC, is a close cousin to Sprint's HTC Hero. It shows a few design differences, but the feature set is largely the same. Yet, unlike the Hero, the Eris is available at the bargain-basement price of $99 with service.
On the outside you'll first notice the 3.2-inch display, which offers seven home screen for full customization. The display is bright and vibrant and it shows the same touch controls at the bottom. The physical controls are similar as well--there's a trackball and Talk and End/power keys--but the Droid Eris is more rectangular than its predecessor and it has a darker color. We also were glad to see the 3.5mm headset jack.
It has a 5-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a full HTML browser with Flash Lite, GPS, a digital compass, voice dialing, PC syncing, messaging and e-mail, a personal organizer, and USB mass storage. And, of course, it offers seamless support for Google services. But in a change from the Hero, the Droid Eris also has a proximity sensor.
The Droid Eris will go on sale November 6 for $99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. Needless to say, that price makes it the cheapest Android phone available--at least for now. We'll have a full review on Friday, but in the meantime please enjoy these hands-on photos.
On Sale Now: $99.99
View the latest prices for HTC Droid Eris (Verizon Wireless)
