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Nokia Q2 Results Are Out. Profits Fall As Smartphones Get Cheaper

And the results are in - Nokia just announced their Q2 financial results. To summarize - sales are up, profits are down, shifting currency exchange rates didn't help and smartphones have sold more units and have gotten cheaper, compared to previous periods.

The net sales for the Nokia Corporation 10 005 million euro (12.842 billion US dollars) and the net operating profit is 660 million euro. Net sales are 1% higher than the year ago quarter and 5% higher the previous quarter. However, operating profit has fallen.

Looking at just the mobile phone division, it has net sales of 6 800 million euro (3% higher YoY and 2% higher QoQ) and 643 million euro operating profit - 16% down YoY and 23% down QoQ.

"Converged mobile devices" (that is smartphones and mobile computers) accounted for just over half of those sales. That's 12% more sales than converged devices managed in last year's second quarter.

This is likely due to the noticeable drop in the average selling price for smartphones - it's 143 euro (184 USD) for the second quarter of this year, down from 181 euro (232 USD) for last years Q2. That's a 21% drop. Feature phones have a mostly stable average selling price of 39 euro.

Nokia attributes the falling gross margins to "price pressure" in the high-end segment and depreciation of the euro. Industry-wide shortages of some components had a negative impact on sales and Nokia predicts those shortages will continue into the third quarter as well.

Apple Gets All Defensive, Free iPhone 4 Cases 4 Everyone

Apple just finished off its press conference dedicated on the iPhone 4 reception issues leaving us quite puzzled, to say the least. At one point Steve Jobs was saying that every phone has a weak spot, then he claimed everybody makes mistakes but Apple is quick to fix theirs so that's why they have loyal users. Apple wants its users happy and since everyone cries for free cases, they will give away free cases. But not because they've messed up, but only because "they loves their users".

How about that? Apparently the problem with the iPhone 4 antenna had been blown way out of proportion by the "bad press". The iPhone 4 reputation obviously has been ruined by its incorrect signal representation and the easily accessible weak spot.

"There is no perfect phone." - says Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs. This may very well be true, but we never heard of another phone dropping calls when held in the most natural of ways.

Afterwards they treated us to several slides, suggesting that only a minor portion of users were troubled by the iPhone 4 flawed antenna design.

Okay, let’s explain how this works – when it’s a design issue, it means that EVERY user will have it. Of course those lucky enough to live in an area with very strong signal will be less affected by it, but that’s a whole different story.

Obviously only about 0.5 percent of all customers complained directly to Apple about reception issues. But how about that everyone who opened a tech site for the past two weeks (or knew a guy who did) was perfectly aware what was going on and knew that this call will do them no good.

At least Apple decided to do the decent thing and give a free case to every iPhone 4 user. Plus they are willing to waive the restocking fee for everyone who wants to return the handset in the next 30 days. Just bear in mind that it’s not the Bumpers that Apple is giving away but some other type of cases by another manufacturer. User will even have some kind of choice.

Steve Jobs also mentioned the other big issue with the iPhone 4 – its faulty proximity sensor. He promises they are already working on a fix for that and it will be coming with a future software update. Not much of a consolation really, as proximity sensor problems, unlike antenna issues have been troubling even people in areas with great coverage.

Now you can bet that being treated like fools and being told that there is no problem when it’s pretty clear that a problem exists is not our favorite thing. Still we cannot see Apple doing much better than this – you didn’t really expect them to recall all phones and replace them at an indefinite time in the future when they come up with a better design, did you?

So that’s about it for now, we’ll keep you posted when we get more info about those promised cases. And of course we will continue hoping that Apple come up with a solution and fix the problem in some future batch of handsets.

P.S. Steve Jobs confirmed they're right on track with the next wave of iPhone availability scheduled for the 30 July. 17 more countries will get the iPhone 4 then. Plus the white iPhone 4 is expected to ship in the end of July too.

Major UK Roadmap Leaks - HTC Gold, Ace & Vision, Nokia E7 & Samsung Cetus On The Way

Today I stumbled upon a major UK roadmap leak, bringing bringing some juicy information. HTC Gold, Ace and Vision, Nokia E7, and Samsung i8700 Cetus and brand-new BlackBerry Curve 9300 - they're all unannounced and they will all star in this year's releases.

August is the month for BlackBerry Curve 9300. It targets the mid-range market and will come with 3.2 megapixel camera and the typical portrait QWERTY keyboard.

October is the time when Nokia N8 and Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 will hit the shelves. But the good news don't stop here.

HTC Vision and HTC Ace are also scheduled for launch in October. Vision is a Desire twin with a sliding full QWERTY keyboard, while Ace is still a mystery.

November seems to be the most interesting month of all. HTC Gold (also known as Mondrian) should make its premiere then. It's supposed to be the company's first Windows Phone 7 device.

Nokia E7 (most probably the rumored Nokia N9) will launch as well borrowing the N8's aluminum body and Symbian^3, while upgrading it with QWERTY keyboard and tilting screen. It might turn out that E7 is the successor of the Nokia N97.

Finally comes Samsung i8700 Cetus, which is also rumored for November release. Perhaps it will be a high-end Bada OS device.

Well, that's all I know so far. I expect some of these handsets to make the news this summer.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread Detailed, Juicy Specs Confirmed

Froyo is barely out the door, but attention is already turning to the next Android version - 3.0 Gingerbread. It will impose minimum hardware requirements, the UI is getting overhauled and Android is splitting into two.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread, says Eldar Murtazin, edotor-in-chief of Mobile-review.com, will be for high-end devices only. A 1GHz CPU and 512MB RAM at minimum plus a display over 3.5" inches in diagonal. Android 2.1 Eclair/2.2 Froyo will remain and run on mid-range and low-end phones.

This will officially lead to the Android platform splitting into two. With so many complaints about platform segmentation now, we can only imagine what it will be when this happens.

Anyway, Android 3.0 Gingerbread will add support for a new resolution - 1280x760 (just over 720p) for screens 4" and bigger (the iPad has a 4:3 1024x768 screen). This should mostly benefit Android-based tablets, which have only recently started cropping up.

The new version will also bring the end to 3rd-party UIs - still, HTC, Samsung, Motorola and the rest will be able to keep their mods for the 2.1/2.2 branch of Android. The new UI for Android 3.0 Gingerbread is said to take its cue from the Gallery App on the Nexus One - the feel, the transitions and so on.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread is expected in mid-October - and we expect the first phone to get it to be the Nexus One (it meets the requirements). Unless the oft rumored Nexus Two beats it to the punch.

And as always unofficial ports will become available for current phones. But let's not put the cart before the horse - all this is still rumors, there's no official word from Google just yet.

Rumored Nokia C7 Is 4 real, Still Not Official Though

One of Nokia's next full touch smartphones, the Nokia C7, which posed for some photos a couple of weeks back is for real. The confirmation comes from Nokia itself - the C7-00 UA profile surfaced on the company's website. Sadly, there are still plenty of unanswered questions concerning the upcoming device.

However, the Nokia C7 images that showed up a bit earlier this month gave clear answers to some of the questions. The phone features an 8-megapixel snapper and comes with a large touchscreen and no hardware keyboard.

According to the UA profile of the smartphone, the screen will be of nHD resolution (360 x 640 pixels). As for the other features, Nokia C7 will support HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (v2.0). The new Symbian^3 platform has also been confirmed as the Nokia C7 OS of choice.

Unfortunately, the launch date and the price of the Nokia C7-00 are still pretty much a mystery.

QWERTY Enabled Nokia N9 Surfaces, Runs On Symbian^3

The Symbian^3-powered smartphone with a tilting slide-out QWERTY keyboard packs an 8 megapixel autofocus camera and it has already been leaked once before.

Unfortunately, the Nokia N9 doesn’t share the xenon flash of its N8 sibling, but goes for a modest dual-LED unit instead. There is also no confirmation yet if the N9 can do HD video.

While the source is unable to provide any further specs about what seems to be the Nokia new smartphone flagship, it seems that Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G with HSDPA are pretty safe bets. A 3.5” screen with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels is also pretty much certain.

This leak is somewhat surprising, given that Nokia made an official statement that the N8 will be the last Symbian-running member of the Nseries. We guess that there is still a good chance that the prototype will not go by N9 but will join the Eseries instead.

You Are Holding Your iPhone 4 The Wrong Way, You Know!

iPhone 4 launch was full of surprises - dead on arrival, yellow spots or white dots on the screen, lost reception signal and a bunch of happy users. It seems the yellow spots will disappear in a few days, what about the spotty reception?

There are numerous iPhone 4 users reports of the phone losing signal when you hold it covering the bottom left corner where the GSM and Wi-Fi antennas meet.

Apple states they know of the issue and their official statement is amazingly instructional:

"Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

Reportedly, Steve Jobs was even kind enough to reply to some user emails - briefly, but straight to the point:

"Just avoid holding it that way."

Ok, we understand how clever it was of Apple to design the iPhone antennas in that way and we can accept new technology comes with its own quirks. But stating a right and wrong way of holding your phone with the latter able to leave you totally signal - less - well that's plain wrong. Not to mention even THEY hold it the wrong way on their ads.



In this particular case what we don't like is Apple's attitude. Pretending such thing is not a big issue, saying it's a normal thing for a cellphone to lose signal, and not admitting a design flaw - that's arrogant. Fans will probably be willing to avoid holding the iPhone 4 that way. Being polite and confessing a wrong goes a long way. So does giving a bonus Bumper case to all affected. Just sayin'.

Nokia N8 Looks Good

Reviews of Nokia N8 are spawning all over the place as if Nokia has lifted some sort of an embargo on the N8 public appearances. We just stumbled upon a pretty nice video that offers a rare sight – the Nokia N8 Symbian ^3 UI in action, including some pinch zooming and some gaming action (the office favorite, Angry birds). Plus both – you can pinch zoom in Angry birds, too. How’s that for cool?

In some quite related news, we just got that Doug Dawson, a Nokia spokesman, has confirmed for Reuters that the Nokia N8 will be the last N-series device to run Symbian OS of any kind. From now on, N-series flagships will only use MeeGo. But that doesn’t mean Nokia will drop Symbian. The company will still use it for the rest of its touch smartphones, such as the X-series and even the C-series. The rest of the smartphones will use the regular non-touch variety of Symbian S60.

Other new stuff includes the fluid Cover flow-style layout of the music player.

Source of the presenting video (DK): http://webtv.comon.dk/Premiere-Nokia-N8-1.363530.html

Google Maps 4 Android Updated To v4.3, Google Voice Graduates From Beta, Open 2 Everyone

The latest version 4.3 of Google Maps has been released for download. It updates the users experience in several ways – some of which more subtle than others.

Not only you can get upcoming public transport schedules so you can see when is the next bus or train leaving, but also there are color-coded review aggregations of places to eat so you don’t have to go through all reviews individually.

Further on, Google Latitute now makes it even easier to share your location to friends.

You can get the latest Google Maps app for Android on the Android market app repository. It’s compatible with Android 1.6 and upwards.

Google Voice is final

In related news, Google Voice just graduated from beta and it’s available to everyone (in the US, at least) without invites. If you haven’t jumped on the VoIP calls bandwagon with Google Voice so far, not it’s a good time to test it out. You can get all of the available features explained right here, but as the Google blog puts it, “Google Voice gets you one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more.”

http://google.com/voice
http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-voice-for-iphone-and-palm-webos.html

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 Review: A Smart Duo - Part 2

A more thumbable phonebook

Contact management is usually considered one of the strongest points of Windows Mobile. You have an unlimited contact list, unlimited info fields for each contact and brilliant synchronization options. Shame it's so damn ugly. Even in 6.5, Contacts remained virtually unchanged.

What we like about the GSmart S1205 phonebook is the improved contact search. Apart from the tiny letters on top of the screen you get some large way more thumbable on-screen buttons with letters on them. And quite conveniently – these are only the letters you have contacts starting with. Those allow quick gradual typing which really helps finding the contact you need pretty easy. Again, it doesn’t look good but usability is OK.

If you don’t like to see the quick search letter boxes, you can swipe the Contact list sideways, as indicated by an arrow. If you do, you’ll only get the actual list of contacts fill the screen. Selecting a contact reveals a call screen with two virtual buttons at the bottom: Call and Menu. Pressing Call will initiate a call on the primary SIM card – you don’t get to choose.

Pressing “Menu” however will bring a pop-up list of options such as delete, edit, save to card 1 or 2, assign speed dial, send text, etc. Alternatively, the same menu can be evoked by tapping and holding on a contact. The best thing though is you’ll get the options Call From SIM1 and Call From SIM2.

Dual SIM telephony

Making calls is always a priority for any cellphone – the Dual SIM ability certainly holds the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 to a higher standard.

The Phone application offers Smart dialing, so you hardly ever need to go to the Contact list to dial a number. Once you’ve dialed the number or found the contact you’re about to call, you only have to choose the SIM card to place the phone call on. On the dialpad, there are two virtual buttons: Talk1 and Talk2.

The Phone application also offers a tiny screen above the numpad with a list of recent calls. Alternatively, you can hit the History button and enter the actual Call log.

During a phone call on either of the SIM cards, the other one is not active. So people calling you will hear an out-of-coverage or phone-switched-off message.

The Call log does reasonably well to accommodate the dual SIM functionality. It displays the type of call (incoming, outgoing, etc.), the SIM card used, the caller number/name and the number of calls. When you select a log entry, you can see the entire call history, including the time and date, as well as the call duration.

When a Call log entry is selected, pressing the call key will start a call on the primary SIM card – even if the call was made or received on the secondary SIM. There’s a way around that though – tapping and holding on a Call log item, opens a contextual pop-up menu with relevant options. Among them are Save to Contacts, Delete, Send text and – best of all – Call on 1 and Call on 2.

Messaging the WinMo way

The Gigabyte S1205 supports SMS, MMS and email. SMS and MMS share an inbox and a message editor and, thanks to Windows Mobile 6.5, you can enjoy thumb scrolling in the inboxes and through longer messages.

Still the message interface is the stock Windows Mobile 6.5, where the only upgrade is the slightly touch-optimized menu.

Threaded SMS is also available on the S1205, just as it is across Windows 6.5.

The email editor will hold no surprises for experienced WinMo users as it has not changed at all.

Setting up your email is easy as it is on most of the latest mid or high range phones. You type your email and password and all the other fiddly options are configured automatically.

Perhaps now is a good time to mention input options on the S1205. Gigabyte have equipped the device with two pretty thumbable SPB virtual keyboards. It's a commendable feature since the default Windows Mobile keyboards are fit for stylus use only.

The first keyboard is a full portrait touch optimized QWERTY and the second one is the same QWERTY in landscape mode. The regular WinMo QWERTY for use with a stylus is as usual onboard.

Handwriting recognition is also available and works just fine.

Image gallery and photo album

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 offers two galleries. Both are available from the Multimedia folder in the Start menu.

The first one is the standard Windows Mobile 6.5 variety. It has no accelerometer support and you can't flick-scroll images.

The PhotoAlbum app is a new addition by Gigabyte and though not innovative or beautiful, is still better than the stock gallery. It's properly thumb optimized. Once an image is opened, you can zoom in or out or continue to the previous/next by finger sweeps.

With the PhotoAlbum app scrolling to the next image is smooth and instantaneous with a single move of the thumb.

Windows Media player for music and videos

Unfortunately, Gigabyte stopped right there and did not bother to include any custom music or video player to complement the standard Windows Media player. As usual, it's poor at managing playlists with your favorite songs, and generally has limited functionality. The interface is less than touch-friendly.

Watching varied video content is almost a no-go as there is a limited support for video formats (and codecs).

Core player is the better option

If you’re not impressed with the Windows Player, you may want to install a third-party media app such as the Core player. It successfully played all DivX/Xvid movies, except those using the AC3 audio.

Keep in mind that only videos with maximum resolution of 1008 x 1008 are supported so if you can skip the HD playback (it doesn't really make sense on a mobile screen anyway), you will be happy to know that all other videos we tried played smoothly with no audio problems or dropped frames.

We ran some benchmarks with the Core Player against the Acer neoTouch and the HTC Touch Diamond and here are the results.

Audio output is impressive

The audio output of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is downright impressive, the handset faring great in our traditional test.

In addition to being on the louder side of the handsets we have tested so far, the S1205 achieved great scores across the board, making it impossible to find a weak spot in its performance.

FM radio

The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 built-in FM radio naturally requires the headset to be plugged-in.

The FM radio has an excellent interface and offers memory for 20 radio stations.

Inadequate camera

The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 has a 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera producing photos with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The camera offers an intuitive user interface and shoots in landscape mode. However it doesn’t have a flash.

The S1205 camera viewfinder is nicely touch-optimized and has all controls you may need placed on the two vertical taskbars on both sides of the viewfinder. There you can change the shooting mode, scene, timer settings, effects, adjust brightness or go to the Photo Album. To go to the advanced settings hit the arrow at the bottom of the screen.

Speaking of the advanced settings, they include image resolution and default storage, white balance, ISO and other image properties (saturation, contrast and sharpness). Although the S1205 has an inbuilt GPS receiver its camera lacks geotagging support.

The 3 megapixel shooter is nothing special in terms of image quality. Images are oversharpened (even when sharpness is set to 0), but with good contrast and acceptable color rendering.

Noise levels are normally quite high and the aggressive noise reduction that kicks in takes its toll on resolved detail. At 100% magnification there's easily visible watercolor effect on most surface textures.

Generally, the lack of detail in images is a major weakness along with the limited dynamic range, which easily leads to underdeveloped shadows or blown highlights.

Video recording

As far as video recording is concerned, the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 can offer VGA resolution at 30fps.

The camcorder interface is identical to the one of the still camera. Unfortunately, there is no image stabilization of any kind.

The videos shot with the S1205 turned out pretty nice. While we would’ve been happier to see more detail and less compression artifacts, the contrast and the actual frame rate are quite good.

Connectivity: no 3G

When it comes to connectivity, the Gugabyte GSmart S1205 is struggling to match most midrange PocketPC’s. While it packs quad-band GSM support for both SIM cards, it lacks 3G support so the best you get is EDGE.

At least, there is Wi-Fi so if there is a hotspot nearby you could take advantage of it. Bluetooth with EDR and A2DP is also on board.

The S1205 comes with a microUSB port and USB 2.0 support. When connected to a computer, the GSmart S1205 prompts you to select among ActiveSync or Mass Storage mode.

In Mass Storage mode, the memory card is treated as a removable drive. The only downside is in this mode you have no access to the memory card from the handset itself – the card becomes invisible to the file manager.

Browser: not enough processing power and no accelerometer

Now, this is the really interesting part – the preloaded version of the Internet Explorer Mobile web browser packs a nice touch-optimized interface and a cool skin. It sports kinetic scrolling and full Flash support, and looks set to give you the browsing experience that it fails to deliver on competing devices.

Zooming is easiest with double tapping on-screen. Double taps are certainly more comfortable than the alternative zoom bar.

There is no built-in accelerometer so don’t expect the screen to rotate automatically.

Unfortunately page load times are awful even on Wi-Fi. Scrolling speed is passable though.

Opera Mobile web browser is still the best among the Windows Mobile browsers and is available for free download. Even optimized, Internet Explorer still has a lot of catching up to do.

Organizer and apps

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 features the standard time PIM features as any other WinMo-powered device and a full office package with editing. As far as the apps are concerned, there is only one worth mentioning - the Pocket Backup.

It allows you to save your data before you upgrade the phone’s software and restore it when the system upgrade is ready. You can choose which items to be covered by the backup but what is far more interesting, you can schedule the next backup.

Final words

The Gigabyte GSmart 1205 isn’t a phone you’ll instantly like. The cheap finish and the poor screen are no match for most other PocketPC’s out there, not even some pretty old ones.

But then, it’s not this phone’s job to lure and seduce. It’s simply waiting to be discovered by the practical buyer. It may take a while before you know it’s a PocketPC, and Dual SIM isn’t inscribed in gilded letters. But that’s what it is – a dual SIM PocketPC. Now, good luck trying to beat that, HTC, Sony Ericsson and the like.

Now, not only is the Gigabyte GSmart 1205 a dual SIM PocketPC – it’s one of the cheapest PocketPCs ever. Seems the right thing to do really when you know you can’t compete with HDs and XPERIAs. A bargain is welcome – no doubt about that, but the GSmart 1205 is cheap and it means it.

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 Review: A Smart Duo - Part 1

Dual-SIM smartphones are hard to get by. The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is a fresh addition to that scarce product line, but doesn’t take its unique selling point as a license to empty your wallet. A well built phone, the GSmart is sturdy as a work horse – and probably as good looking. But that’s not the point – at this price you won’t look it in the mouth. It’s a straight deal: a dual SIM PocketPC within budget. The home-brewed Smart Pack user interface on top of the Windows Mobile 6.5 is the only bonus feature.

The GSmart S1205 hits the market a few months before the release of the new Windows Phone 7 OS and must fight among a slew of Android handsets. But it has one powerful weapon – dual-SIM dual standby support. We are sure there are many people out there who have to lug around both their home and work phones and would welcome a one-device solution. Their choice has always been limited and Gigabyte are pleased to offer a solution. The GSmart S1205 seems to have a whole niche all to itself. Let’s look at how it’s gonna handle it.

Key features

3.2" 65K-color resistive touchscreen at WQVGA resolution
Dual-SIM dual standby quad-band GSM/EDGE support
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS with Smart Pack UI
MediaTek MT6516 416MHz CPU
128MB RAM, 256MB ROM
3 megapixel fixed-focus camera and VGA@30fps video
Wi-Fi connectivity
FM radio with RDS
Stereo Bluetooth 2.1, standard microUSB port
GPS receiver
3.5mm audio jack
Office document viewer and editor
Good audio quality

Main disadvantages

Low-end display resolution
Poor sunlight legibility
Smudge-prone screen surface
No 3G connectivity
No Back button
Task manager buried deep in the Settings menu

The lack of 3G support is perhaps the most important drawback. Still, there is EDGE to cover data connections and Wi-Fi for heavy use, which should be enough for most. The three megapixel fixed-focus camera is perhaps more of a disadvantage rather than a key feature. But dual-SIM smartphone shoppers are not quite likely to care about imaging anyway.

Gigabyte have made their own custom interface – the Smart Pack UI. It adds some fancy homescreens to offset the rather boring Windows Mobile looks. The new UI is not in the same league as the heavily customized HTC Sense, but still manages to impress. We are not talking a high-end smartphone here after all.

Modest retail package

The tiny box of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 packs everything you’d expect to get with such a phone. There’s a USB charger, a standard microUSB data cable and the usual paperwork.

There’s a one-piece headset, but the supplied headphones aren't your only option as the S1205 has a 3.5mm audio jack. However, there is no bundled memory card so you’ll need to buy one.

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 360-degree spin

The GSmart S1205 is more than decently sized for a dual SIM touch phone. On a second look though, the wasted space around the screen doesn’t quite make sense. The handset measures 110.6 x 55.0 x 13.1 mm and weighs in at 114.5 grams. It feels solid in the hand, but the battery cover creaks annoyingly every now and then when you tap the screen.

Design and construction

Touchscreen phones are not the best devices to get creative with design and the GSmart S1205 is no exception. It’s a simple handset, finished in black with gray accents down the side. Again, it’s a reasonably well built phone but perhaps looking a bit cheap for a PocketPC. But you know what – that’s not too bad. After all, it is a cheap PocketPC – and dual SIM at that.

The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 uses a 3.2” WQVGA resistive touchscreen. It’s responsive enough, but the sunlight legibility is one of the poorest we’ve ever had to deal with. The plastic over the screen is highly reflective and gets covered in fingerprints in no time, which doesn’t help at all. Basically the screen is good enough indoors and as good as useless outdoors.

Above the screen we find the earpiece, which acts as a loudspeaker too. There is also a small status LED next to it. It blinks in different color to indicate charging, or various active connections.

Underneath the screen, there’s a mix of hardware and buttons and touch controls. You have a touch-sensitive (resistive) Start button to access the Honeycomb launcher. The other touch control is a Phone Settings key to access the various settings of the two SIM cards.

There’s no call management involved though, just the essential user-defined settings for the two phone modules. In between these two buttons is what looks like a home key but it doesn’t do anything other than turn on the backlighting of the two call buttons.

Further down are the call/end knobs, either side of the Center key. The latter is no Home button either – strangely it’s a confirm button and it’s absolutely redundant on a touchscreen device. It will activate the currently selected item in a list or icon in a menu. The only time it becomes remotely usable is in some of the custom homescreens of the Smart Pack plug-in.

It’s a shame really – a dedicated back button would’ve made so much more sense.

The left side of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 features a thin volume rocker, while the right one hosts the dedicated camera key and the microSD card slot.

Unfortunately there is no cover for the card slot and it’s likely to pick up dust Cleanup is recommended every once in a while.

At the top we find the lonely and very thin Power/Lock key.

As usual, at the bottom of the phone you will see the mouthpiece. The standard microUSB port accommodates both the charger and the data cable. Right next to it is the 3.5 mm audio jack.

The other thing to note here is the stylus compartment. Unfortunately, there is no active stylus here – a feature we quite liked in some PocketPCs by HTC. What’s worse though is that the stylus is essential in the Gigabyte GSmart S1205. Despite the Smart Pack customization, using this phone isn’t exactly thumb-friendly. But more on this in the interface chapter.

The back of the S1205 features only the 3 megapixel camera lens and the GSmart logo.

The material used on the rear cover is similar to HTC Desire’s soft-touch plastic – it’s still plastic but with a soft rubbery feel for a great grip.

Under the battery cover, you'll find the two SIM card slots and the 1320 mAh battery right next to them. The SIM beds are one on top the other and have a tiny lock mechanism. Tampering with the lock switch turns off the phone immediately.

The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is a well-built phone. It looks cheap but we guess most of the potential customers won’t mind the cost-cutting. No fancy finish, poor screen and all, this phone is trying to deliver where it counts and the lack of competition in the dual SIM smartphone niche certainly works in its favor.

We for one wouldn’t care so much about the looks and finish. The lack of proper Home and Back keys however does make the handling a bit awkward. Anyway, compromises were obviously inevitable but the price tag takes due notice.

Smart Pack Custom interface

Gigabyte GSmart S1205 runs Windows Mobile 6.5. That’s not an impressive start really – several months now since the much fresher WinMo 6.5.3 has been around and the new Windows Phone 7 is expected in another few months.

Luckily, there is some eye candy – and a bit of functionality boost – on top of the stock OS to make up for the missing WinMo 6.5.3.

Let’s take a closer look at the home-brewed Smart Pack. This is actually what makes the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 worth a look – apart from the dual SIM thing. What you get is not only a revamped homescreen but three Gigabyte-made themes that will let you further customize the handling – with quite a number of homescreen panes, various shortcuts, sweep gestures and widgetry.

There’s nothing special about the Windows Mobile theme. You have a homescreen with customizable wallpaper and some virtual buttons (called “items”). You can add as many items as you wish until the whole Today screen is covered with them. The items are most of the time simple small-font lines of text you can’t really tap – stylus works way better. It doesn’t look too tidy, let alone stylish, especially on a low-res screen.

Next up is the Chinese Painting theme which brings you three homescreen panes. The first one (central) features four shortcuts docked at the bottom. By default, those virtual buttons are assigned to the dialer, messaging, call log and the theme switcher. Notice the small numbers below the Messages and Call Log icons – those indicate the number of new messages and missed calls.

Tapping and holding on any of those four shortcuts will launch a menu to let you assign other functions – you have a choice between nine items.

The favorite features list is a swipe away to the right, on the next homescreen pane. Again, you can tap and hold on an item to change or remove it.

A swipe to the left form the central homescreen will take you to E-mail, Call History, Contacts and Quick Contacts.

Another swipe, this time upwards, leads you to the widgets – Calculator, Notes, Windows Live, Clock, World Clock, Schedule, and Weather. A downward swipe (or pressing the hardware Confirm key), will take you to the menu. Those two screens (widgets and menu) are also available in the next two themes. They only look a bit different.

The other things that the three Gigabyte themes have in common are the icons on top of the homescreen. Those are somewhat oversized (bad-looking, but are finger-friendly) indicators for the battery, signal strength (for both SIM cards) and connectivity with the lock key underneath. And under the battery indicator you’ll see information on the time and date as well as a weather forecast.

A tap on the battery indicator starts the Power Manager while tapping on either of the signal strength indicators will bring you to the Wireless Manager where you can switch Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and off, enable/disable any of the SIM cards and activate Airplane Mode.

The Smart Zone theme has 9 homescreen panes, which are accessible by thumb sweeps in all four directions. The funny thing is you even have diagonal swipes. If you press the Confirm key, you’ll get a tiled view of all 9 homescreen panes.

The central screen displays the same information as the Chinese Painting homescreen but this time there is a large centrally located analog clock with weather readings just underneath. The rest is the same.

Again, the left screen (swipe to the right to access it) is reserved for the favorite features list and the right one – for E-mail account, Call History, Contacts and Quick Contacts.

To get to the settings screen you swipe upwards from the homescreen, while a short menu (Tools, Media, Office Mobile) is hidden in the upper screen. Windows Media is launched by a diagonal swipe downwards left to right. A downward diagonal swipe right to left reveals the Photo Album. The other two (upward) diagonal swipes will take you to the Widget screen and the Internet Explorer, respectively.

To go back from any of the panes to the central homescreen, there’s a dedicated button in the upper right corner of each screen. Right next to it, is a button that will bring up the aggregated tile view of all the screens.

It sounds complicated but it isn’t once you’ve spent some time with the phone. The graphics generally look poor on the low-res screen and the Smart Zone theme does look rather basic with its white background. The diagonal swipes are just too much perhaps. But some users will appreciate the number of shortcuts available on the Gigabyte GSmart S1205.

The Live Nature theme is our favorite. There are no countless screens here (just the homescreen, a custom-made launcher and a widget screen) but it still is convenient enough. And reasonably attractive too – as much as it could be on a WQVGA screen.

The homescreen is pretty standard with one major exception – it’s alive. There’s always something going on – a snail will slide down a leave, cows grazing in the meadow will moo when touched, a little frog will snap at a buzzing fly. You may notice a flying kite, an airplane or a flock of birds crossing the sky, rain falling down. None of these though is informative in any way, no alerts or signals or anything. It’s all there for fun’s sake. .

The Widget screen is an upward swipe away while the Application launcher menu is in the opposite direction (or accessed through the Confirm key).

Speaking of the special Application menu, it’s like a list of all your applications and most important settings all in one place. It consists of three screens. The indicator on top of the display tells you which of the menu screens you’re currently looking at.

We decided to do a benchmark and see how the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 stacks up next to the much powerful Acer neoTouch, which comes with the 1GHz Snapdragon processor on board. From the screenshots bellow you may see that CPU results of the Snapdragon are 3 times better, while most of the other neoTouch benchmark results are even more impressive.

Overall, Gigabyte deserve some credit for trying to boost customization options. It’s not always consistent and not all of their design decisions make sense. Not to mention that the poor screen resolution does the interface little favor.

The respectable number of shortcuts and the level of homescreen customization are commendable. The themes are diverse enough and give users adequate choice. On the other hand, the lack of a proper Back button does affect navigation. And sadly, there are too many places in the interface where the stylus is essential.

Around 3 Million IPads In 80 Days

One, two, three… million iPads sold already. iPad sales reached the two million mark in the end of May and now, barely over 20 days later, another million iPads have found their way to their happy owners. By the looks of it, sales are picking up the pace…

…which is what we expected too. The faster pace is probably due to the expanded availability and the introduction of the 3G version of the iPad.

It has taken Apple 80 days to sell 3 million units of their self-proclaimed "magical" tablet. The first and second million took about the same amount of time – about 30 days, but Apple managed to sell the third million in just 20 days, a good 30% faster.

The apps made just for the iPad are growing fast too. They haveve more than doubled in those 20 days – there are now over 11,000 iPad apps in the market, in addition to the 200,000+ apps for the iPhone/iPod that the iPad can use as well.

There are plenty of tablets showing up from all corners of rumorland – mostly Android-based tablets (the Samsung Tape and the Huawei S7 to mention a few), but Windows 7 ones too (like the Asus EEE Pads), even MeeGo tablets. Still, a million iPads in three weeks is impressive every way you slice it and the guys at Apple can sleep soundly for now.

In fact, if anything can slow the breakneck speed with which iPads are flying off the shelf, it is the iPhone 4 launch. Judging by the overwhelming server-crashing number of pre-orders, most people's next Apple gadget will be an iPhone 4.