The Desk Genie is an interesting mobile phone accessory. As the name suggests, the Desk Genie is a mobile phone holder that charges pretty much any mobile phone out there whilst also acting as a two-port USB hub and 8-in-1 card reader. It comes with a non-slip surface that holds your phone in one place.

MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the Desk Genie for us to review. The device costs £14.99. MobileFun applies a small delivery charge on top of this depending on whether shipping is to the UK or mainland Europe. Click through to read our impressions of this charging desk stand. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nexxus DriveMultiSolar is a well built solar-powered Bluetooth car kit. The advantages that solar power brings are numerous. This includes longer talk and standby time, as well as having no cables trawling over your dashboard. As is hinted by the name, the device also comes with a multi-point connection, allowing you to connect two mobiles.

MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the DriveMultiSolar for us to review. The device is also known as the Clip and Talk Solar Edition according to the retailer and costs £29.95. MobileFun applies a small delivery charge on top of this depending on whether shipping is to the UK or mainland Europe. Read the rest of this entry »

The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is one of the best handsets I’ve used for GPS navigation. We all know how wonderful the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD’s 3.7-inch OLED display is, combine this with a sensitive capacitive touchscreen and fast GPS lock and you have an ideal device for car journeys.

However, there is one caveat and that is battery life. Using Garmin on my i8910 is the quickest way to drain the battery. I’ve been looking for a solution for a while and luckily, help was at hand. MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the DriveSafe Car Kit for the Samsung i8910 HD. This kit not only includes a holder for the handset, but also a charger too – not bad for only £12.95 + P&P. Read the rest of this entry »

Bluetooth is one of those features that can be a pretty important factor in mobile handsets. It allows you to transfer media (including pictures and music) to and from your laptop/desktop or even stream stereo music to a headset using A2DP (Advance Audio Distribution Profile). Many users now tether their cell phones to netbooks/laptops using Bluetooth, cementing just how important it can be.

However, Bluetooth doesn’t appear in every netbook/laptop/desktop. Using a USB Bluetooth dongle is one of the ways of getting Bluetooth onto your netbook and it’s a relatively inexpensive option. MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the Atomic Pico Bluetooth USB dongle for review. This particular dongle is the smallest in the world according to its manufacturers and costs £8.95. MobileFun applies a small delivery charge on top of this depending on whether shipping is to the UK or mainland Europe. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a number of manufacturers that provide screen protectors for various handsets and portable gadgets. One of the most well-known & trusted brands in this area is Martin Fields. The guys over at MobileFun.co.uk were kind enough to send the screen protector for us to review.

Martin Fields range of Overlay Plus screen protectors are known for the fact that it gives 99 percent UV light protection. The protectors are also washable and reusable, they use only a mild adhesive that means if you apply it wrong the first time, all is not doomed. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD has finally found its way into reviewer’s arms, it looks like we may finally start to see some final reviews of Samsung’s wonder handset. Following two preview articles on the i8910, GSMArena has finally released its full review.

They confirmed that the delay was due to the fact that Samsung froze production of the i8910 shortly after its release on carriers at the end of May due to software problems. It claims that the handset is now available worldwide with “all bugs fixed”.

Their overall verdict was certainly a positive one, calling it “one of the best equipped handsets we’ve ever had the chance to review.” It refers to the AMOLED screen as “one of the top units in the touchscreen realm.” They were pleased with the HD camcorder output (given the improvement in audio), although they felt there was room for improvement with the framerate.

The review includes a number of camera and video samples. I couldn’t see exactly what firmware was being used, but it would be interesting to know. You can check out their full review here.

The Nokia N97 has been one of the most eagerly awaited handsets to launch this year. Today, marks the day that the Nokia N97 is officially launched here in the UK. For those of you trying to decide between the i8910 Omnia HD and the Nokia N97 then you might want to check out Part One of My-Symbian’s Samsung i8910 Omnia HD review.

The first part of the review covers the hardware element of the phone and it is well worth a read, even for current owners of the phone. It covers the processor, memory, camera, video, screen, GPS and battery life. The first two bits (processor & memory) are covered in particular depth and what makes it quite interesting is the comparison to the Nokia N97, which is also a S60 5th Edition phone. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel over at Tech65 has posted quite a detailed (and close up) hands-on video of the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD. He gives a good overview of the phone and its interface including the camera, widgets, the lock to stop moving widgets around and text input, which they weren’t too enamoured with. You can check out the full video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Two big UK website publications have given the i8910 HD the review treatment in recent days. Both sites were using the Orange branded handset, but that didn’t stop it scoring very well. One of the main negative points from both reviews related to the chunkiness of the handset, however both praised its screen, multimedia capabilities and UI.

TrustedReviews published its review this morning scoring it a healthy 9/10. TechRadar published a more lengthy review and summed it up by saying that they “had to work hard to find much wrong with it”. They also called it Samsung’s handset of the year so far. You can check out both reviews at the links above.

The sim-free version of the i8910 Omnia HD has already hit Italy as we highlighted yesterday. Following that, Telefonino.net has released an unboxing video and detailed review of the sim-free handset. The video is in Italian, but the pictures are very clear and can even be watched in HD.

My initial thoughts when watching the video is that screen seems very responsive to touch with the menu screens whizzing past. He goes through various parts of the phone including the virtual keyboard, video player as well as the media browser. Using the browser to flick through photos is quite nifty with very little slowdown.

He also played around with the internet browser, which lacked some responsiveness when trying to scroll down the page. To be fair, he was accessing an image-heavy page which was partly to blame. He also demonstrated the zoom function as well as playing flash videos. Check out the video after the break.

Update: We have also included another video below, which goes through just the unboxing ritual of the sim-free i8910 Omnia HD. It is by an Italian user but just has music in the background so anyone can enjoy it! Read the rest of this entry »

We already reported on phoneArena’s review of the Samsung Omnia HD a few days back. It seems that they have now also put up a video review of the phone. The views of their original text review remain, but this 9 minute video goes through the Omnia HD features in depth.

They take us through the software, cropping photos, scrolling on the internet browser, the camera interface, photo samples, the music player and HD video playback. They also show the phone close up and just how much of a fingerprint magnet that plastic casing really is! Remember, phoneArena has the final production Omnia HD, so what you see in the video is what we’ll see in shops soon. Check out the video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

phoneArena has put up the first review of the Omnia HD that we have seen. In case you are wondering, the review was based on a final version of the phone. Overall, they feel it sets a new standard in the all-in-one phone market with the Omnia HD in a class by itself. There were some negative points though, including mediocre call quality, the plastic body being a fingerprint magnet and the inability to see much of the screen when placed in direct sunlight.

Other points that have me slightly concerned are that the plastic back cover doesn’t seem to attach itself too rigidly. I was also secretly hoping that Samsung would include a camera shutter, but that hasn’t happened. The videos seen recently point to a fast UI, phoneArena’s verdict on the UI was that it is “neither sluggish, nor blazing fast.” That is something I can live with. As always I’ve included the key points of the review after the break, however it’s worth checking out the review for yourself mainly for the media samples. Read the rest of this entry »