NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: KEITH SHAW ON WIRELESS COMPUTING DEVICES 11/23/04 Today's focus: Wireless goodies for your holiday stockings
Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED], In this issue: * Wireless devices for your holly jolly holiday * Links related to Wireless Computing Devices * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by SBC Gimme Shelter! Converged Services Spell Relief For Beleaguered Network Managers Switched IP networks are rapidly becoming the corporate communications architecture of choice. By converging voice, data and video onto IP telephony platforms and Virtual Private Networks, enterprises can supply bandwidth when and where end users need it, while significantly lowering administrative and equipment costs. Click here to download this Whitepaper now http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88649 _______________________________________________________________ NW'S RESEARCH CENTER ON SPAM Go to NW's Research Center on spam and find our in-depth review of 16 anti-spam products, our spam calculator to determine how much spam is costing your enterprise each year, the latest spam news, advice on how to fight spam and more. For the latest on spam click here: http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88683 _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: Wireless goodies for your holiday stockings By Keith Shaw In case you missed it, this week Network World published its fifth annual "Cool Yule Tools" holiday gift guide, produced by yours truly. The guide highlights our favorite high-tech toys and gadgets from the year, and offers gift-giving suggestions for overworked network executives. You can view the gift guide by going to <http://www.nwfusion.com/supp/2004/hgg/>. The guide always has its share of wireless devices, PDAs, smart phones, etc., and especially devices for the mobile traveler. Here are a few of our favorites from this year's guide: * Nokia 6820 cell phone We've always complained about how the input method in many cell phones, such as the dreaded triple tap in order to get certain letters, puts people off from using it. So we were happy to try out the Nokia 6820, which was announced more than a year ago but has finally has arrived in the U.S., via AT&T Wireless. The 6820 is a very tiny cell phone with all of the normal bells and whistles that you would expect from a $230 model, including an embedded digital camera, cool ring tones, etc. What makes us happy is the design of a keypad that flips up and over the screen to reveal a second keypad (half is on the left, half is on the right, with the screen in the middle). This QWERTY-style keypad lets you type away as if you were using a BlackBerry device. If this device doesn't get you started doing wireless e-mails or SMS text messages, then nothing will. * HP iPaq HX4705 Pocket PC This $650 PDA has all the capability and features that you need in a PDA. On the wireless side, it has a Wi-Fi connection and Bluetooth. Other features include a Secure Digital and a Compact Flash card slot, external lithium battery, a sharp display and a new slim cover that protects the device when closed and stays out of the way when open. The device has a very powerful 624 MHz processor and offers 192M bytes of total memory (128M-bytes of ROM and 64M-bytes of SDRAM). That almost tops the PCs of only a few years ago. * HP iPaq HX4705 with T-Mobile service At $600 (plus wireless service), this iPaq goes up one in terms of wireless connectivity availability. In addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, this device offers a GSM/GPRS connection through T-Mobile. The device also has an embedded digital camera and a 65,000-plus color display, with the ability to send images in e-mail or MMS text messages. The device offers 64M-bytes of internal memory, but also has a memory card slot for additional memory or storage. * LG VX7000 cell phone The successor to the VX6000 model, the VX7000 is the phone to have if you don't have a smart phone/PDA but still want more features than just a phone that makes calls. Key to the extra features is a video/camera phone with an integrated flash. The camera feature lets you take still images, or videos up to 15 seconds. You can send those messages over Verizon's CDMA 1x wireless network to other phones or e-mail addresses. The clamshell-style phone has two color displays, one external (96 by 96 pixels, 4,096 colors supported), which shows signal strength, battery life, time and date; and an internal display (176 by 220 pixels, 262,000 colors and 11 lines of text supported). When a call comes in, the external display can show caller ID data, including the photo of the person calling (if you have taken their photo beforehand). Five-way navigation button and backlit keypads add to the coolness of the phone. I've had my current cell phone, a Motorola (T720), for about 18 months, despite having lost it twice (once at Universal Studios in Orlando, once in my car). I have been very happy with that phone, until I tried the VX7000. In the past two years, the technology has leapt forward immensely, and you would have thought my old cell phone was a 6-pound brick with a rotary dial. More impressive to me than the camera features was how much the interface has improved. Accessing all the features, such as text and photo messaging, downloading ring tones, games and adding contacts, is about 10 times easier than it is with my current phone. Downloading things over Verizon's CDMA 1x wireless network seems faster as well, and several applications include much better animation than my current phone. The best part is that battery life is much longer than my current phone's battery life. (Verizon claims up to 198 minutes of talk time, and up to 180 hours of standby time.) We normally don't go for more than a day or two with our current phone before hooking it up to the charger - with the VX7000 we didn't worry for at least four or more days. So if I lose my current phone again, chances are I'll be picking up a VX7000 to replace it. Heck, I might even purposely lose it. The LGVX7000 costs between $180 and $250 depending on service plan selected. That's just a few of our favorite devices, be sure to check out the gift guide for more ideas. Have a great Thanksgiving! _______________________________________________________________ To contact: Keith Shaw Keith Shaw is Senior Reviews Editor at Network World. In addition, he writes the " Cool Tools <http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/cooltools.html> " column, which looks at gizmos, gadgets and other mobile computing devices. You can reach Keith at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by SBC Gimme Shelter! Converged Services Spell Relief For Beleaguered Network Managers Switched IP networks are rapidly becoming the corporate communications architecture of choice. By converging voice, data and video onto IP telephony platforms and Virtual Private Networks, enterprises can supply bandwidth when and where end users need it, while significantly lowering administrative and equipment costs. 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