Samsung Armani Features : Internal display: TFT touch screen, 256K colours, 240 x 320 pixels Video camera Internal display: TFT touch screen, 256K colours, 240 x 320 pixels MP3/ACC/ACC+ player MP3 and Polyphonic ring tones Messaging Facility : SMS, MMS, Instant Messaging, Email Java MIDP 2.0 Downloadable Themes (Ringtones, Wallpaper & Screensavers) Personal organiser functions (Calculator, Date and Clock,Currency Converter, Calendar and alarm facilities) Picture phonebook (up to 1,000 entries) 2 games + downloadable Memory: 60 MB internal memory Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB v2.0 GPRS class 10 Vibration alert WAP 2.0/xHTML Talktime: up to 6 hours Battery standby: up to 220 hours Size: 87.5 x 54.5 x 10.5 mm Weight: 85 grams Black colour Document viewer (.pdf, .doc, .ppt, .xls) Voice memo Camera: 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, video(CIF )

Ultra slim gadget: The Samsung Armani is an extremely elegant mobile device, which comes with sleek dimension of 87.5 x 54.5 x 10.5 mm. This mobile device is easy to carry in pocket and quite sleek in its very appearance. The light weighted Samsung Armani at just 85 grams grabs the customers attention easily with its highly tempting premium black colour. Display: The Samsung Armani comes with an extremely fascinating TFT screen, which is large in size and provide great viewing experience to the users. Its touch screen appears quite beautiful and can shows shades up to 256K colours. Powerful Camera: The Samsung Armani is gifted with a highly sophisticated camera of 3.15 mega pixels, which lets the users to capture great quality photographs. With the video capturing facility, the users can also capture some memorable moments of life and can save it for a life time by transferring it in to their personal computer. Voice Memo: The highly unique Samsung Armani is endowed with an amazing feature called voice memo, which lets the users to record various calls and voice of their loved ones. The user will feel more close with his loved ones every time he listens to the recorded voice.

Effective Connectivity:

The users can easily exchange any document, data, audio and video files, wallpapers etc with their friends, through the latest connectivity features such as GPRS, Bluetooth etc. Even, through these highly effective facilities, the user can transfer any favourite ring tonne and wallpaper in to his handset.

Games:

The users can play and enjoy various thrilling games in this wonderful mobile device. Even, they can also download many new and extremely exciting games in their handset.

Memory:

The Samsung Armani provides a vast room for storing plenty of data and entries. The internal memory of this fantastic mobile widget is 60 MB, which is large enough to store lots of important information and data such as images, contacts, videos, songs etc.

Entertainment:

The excellent quality media player and MP3/ACC/ACC+ player offer an amazing musical experience. The users can enjoy their favourite songs any time they want and can lost themselves in the highly refreshing and pleasing musical ambiance.

Messaging:

The Samsung Armani is embedded with latest messaging facilities such as SMS, MMS etc. Through these extremely effective messaging features, the communication has become more fast and interesting. The users can remain in contact with their loved ones through these effective messaging features. Not only this, they can send e-mail to their friends and thus easily manage their official as well as personal work,just by sitting at home.

Document Viewer:

The users can easily view various document file of Microsoft World, Power Point and Excel in their mobile phone through document viewer option. This unique feature makes the Samsung Armani different from other handsets.

Outstanding Sound Quality:

The Samsung Armani supports both high quality polyphonic ringtones and MP3 ringtones. The variety of ringtones help the users to stay out of boring ringtones and feel freshness every time the phone rings.

Sony Ericsson K850i

Sony Ericsson K850i Features : Camera: 5 mega pixel, image stabiliser, auto focus, Xenon flash Photo Fix BestPicT Video recorder and video call Multimedia text messaging features Sound recorder Media player FM radio TrackID PlayNow Games: Embedded Java and 3D games PC synchronisation Bluetooth EDGE USB Speaker phone Quad band technology Web browser Memory: 40 MB, microSD card Talktime: up to 9 hours Standby time: 400 hours Weight: 118 gms Dimensions: 102 x 48 x 17 mm Display: Elegant TFT colour screen, 240 x 320 pixels, 262K colours

Trendy Sony Ericsson K850i handset: This solid bar designed handset is yet another wonder for the lineage of Sony Ericsson. The high-end camera capabilities of this gadget has made it quite popular among the masses. Moreover, the glossy and bright design of this handset makes it very attractive. Intuitive display: The elegant and awe-inspiring TFT colour screen of this mobile phone displays images with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. It is quite amazing to view the displayed images as they are brilliantly supported by 262k colours. Every light and bright details of the images get illustrated in this handset. You would definitely enjoy the visual clarity of this handset without any hassle. Weight and dimensions: This mobile phone boasts of very feature-rich options yet it weighs only 118 gms and has dimensions of 102 x 48 x 17 mm. This light weight feature would facilitate you in varied ways. You can carry it very comfortably and even fix on to your palms at ease.

High resolution camera:

The high resolution camera of this gadget has been enhanced with intuitive user friendly interface. Truly anybody can operate this camera phone. The digital zoom option that comes incorporated with this handset would surely support you in the photography process. With this option far off images can be captured with bright and crystal clear clarity. The red eye reduction option has the ultimate potential to enhance your captured images at ease.

Video player and video recorder:

The impressive video recorder in this gadget would support you to hold all your unforgettable moments by recording them. Numerous video clips can be stored in the in-built memory of this handset. Poor and high light conditions would never concern you. This means you are free to enhance your creativity in recording clips and that too any time and anywhere.

Impressive Photo fix option:

This advanced feature that comes incorporated in this gadget has much to contribute to your photography session. This feature can be brought into action when adjusting light balance, brightness and contrast are concerned. When all these main factors are adjusted the images captured automatically becomes impressive.

Enhanced BestPicT option:

This high-end option would allow you to snap nine shots in quick succession and that too within a second. Furthermore, you can comfortably share those captured images through picture messages and other such options at ease.

Music on the go:

With this mobile phone you can switch on to your favourite music tracks whenever you want. Moreover, the FM radio option is also embedded in this gadget to facilitate your musical features. With this option you get the latest updates from various arenas such as news and films at ease. Just adjust the frequencies of your favourite radio stations and tune them on even while on move. The extra options such as PlayNow and TrackID can also be utilised to enjoy the music tracks to the fullest.

Spine-chilling games:

If you get some time from your busy routine schedule what do you do? Definitely you would like to experience something new and exciting. In such a case you can open the Java and 3D games that come embedded in this mobile phone. These games are quite interactive and would drive out your mundane hours at ease.

Amazing storage capacity:

This gadget has the capability to store tons of contents and files as it comes incorporated with 40 MB storage capacity. Furthermore, this capacity can also be enhanced with a microSD card.

The Samsung i8910 OmniaHD, which was exhibited during the 2009 Mobile World Congress, is now available from UK’s Orange.

The Samsung i8910 OmniaHD is the first ever smartphone from Samsung that is powered by S60 (INFO) 5th Edition. It boasts of a 3.7-inch AMOLED(INFO) touchscreen display, WiFi, and 3G connectivity, and will be for sale at a price of 97.50 GBP on an 18 month, 35 GBP/mo contract.

We have been waiting a long time to get our hands on a US-spec version of the Samsung Omnia and finally the time has come. Verizon Wireless was the lucky carrier to get the smartphone, complete with fresh compatibility with EVDO Rev.A. Very similar to the Samsung Behold, the Omnia runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with the familiar TouchWiz interface. SlashGear had the chance to see just how well the Samsung Omnia holds up to all the hype.

Nothing unusual in the box, just your standard charger, stylus, data cable, hands-free headset with two sets of additional earplugs, headset extension cable, software installation disk, user manual and the Samsung Omnia itself. It turns out the hands free headset is a very nice set of premium, in ear headphones, designed to enhance the sound of the music you have stored in the 8GB or 16GB (whichever you choose) of internal memory.

The Omnia is made of quality materials, giving it a very solid, weighted feel in the palm of your hand. Even next to the Touch Pro, this is easily one of the most beautiful Windows Mobile phones on the market. The 3.2-inch 240 x 400 WQVGA touchscreen is stunning with a bit of a chrome gloss to it. Our only complaint is not being able to see the screen in direct sunlight, even with the brightness set to max, and the colors appear to have a yellow, milky hue to them rather than being crisp and bright. The overall screen sensitivity is very responsive; still not in the ranks of the iPhone, but the vibration feedback with every press certainly helps to fill in the gaps. Unlike the Behold, the Omnia comes with a stylus; however there’s no silo built into the device itself to store it. Even with Windows Mobile, however, we did not often have the need for it.

On the face of the device you will see only two buttons, the Send and End keys. Also on the front of the Omnia is an optical navigation pad that allows you to navigate via a mouse pointer, as you would with a laptop’s touch pad. There was rarely a time when we felt that we needed to use this pad as Windows Mobile is easily navigated by using the touchscreen. Alternatively the pad can be used to mimic a four-way directional control.

On the side is where you will find all of the control keys such as volume and a dedicated camera button. On the left there is a lanyard loop and the Samsung proprietary charging and headphone jack.  This loop is where you would hang the included stylus if you so choose. The right side bears the notes button, up and down volume keys and a dual-action camera key that allows you to depress slightly to use autofocus and all the way to snap a picture. There is a sleep/power button located on the top of the device in the same place you would find it on the iPhone. Also on the top is a recessed reset button. All of the keys on the Samsung Omnia have what you might call a premium feel to them, every one has a very user friendly location and is placed right where you would expect them to be found.

When you flip the device over, your eyes are drawn from the smooth plastic back to the 5-megapixel camera, LED flash and vanity mirror for snapping pictures of yourself.  Sliding off the back cover to reveal the battery is quite easy. Here you will find that in order to swap microSD or SIM cards you must first remove the battery. Generally we prefer an external or at least simpler way to swap cards; it’s much easier to access the memory card from an external side port. Hopefully users won’t have much cause to use a microSD card what with the 8 or 16GB of internal memory. If that’s not enough space  though you can purchase a 32GB microSD for a grand total of 48GB of storage.

The Samsung Omnia runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro with the TouchWiz user interface.  We are still torn between TouchWiz and TouchFLO 3D found on the HTC Touch Pro. Much like the iPhone and identical to the Behold there is a “Dock” lining the bottom of the screen which houses the basic phone functions such as the dialer, phone book, web and menu shortcuts. A convenient slide-out menu hugs the left-hand side of the screen, with various shortcut buttons that users may drag and drop onto the customizable home screen. You can even arrange the icons in the menu in whichever order you like for even quicker access.

Icon placement on the home screen does not follow the grid-like placement of the iPhone. Instead they can be placed wherever you like, even overlapping each other.  The top of the screen is occupied by the traditional Windows Mobile header that you would normally see. The home screen icons are a little  larger than you would expect, making it easier to make the correct selection.  One shortcut icon that we absolutely loved was the interactive photo frame. You can set whichever photo you like to be displayed and even quickly flip through photos without going into the album itself.

The built-in accelerometer responds very quickly when flipping the handset from portrait to landscape mode. There is very little transition time when an application is open. For whatever reason it does not allow you to flip the device upside down, not that you would have any need to. We are not sure if this is because of the hardware or software limitations of the device.

The built-in GPS worked exceptionally well while driving around town. The auto update location feature kept our location as well as we would expect it to. Google Maps would take a few minutes to load upon initial boot up, but quickly resumed with a warm acquisition. Unfortunately we did not have the time to try the GPS out with any other applications to test for consistency.

Placing calls with the dialer is quite easy, the keys are laid out very well with plenty of room for your fingers. Searching through the contacts resembles the iPhone: on the right hand side you will find a scroll bar with the letters of the alphabet on them for quick searching. The large font in the phone book makes contacts very easy to read. Call quality was always top notch with very few dropped calls, and even when using Bluetooth headsets of various kinds we did not experience a loss in call quality. The speakerphone, however, left something to be desired. The sound was really crisp with a good tone, but the volume was always low, often too low to really make use of. The Omnia managed to last through an entire day of moderate use without dying on us. The included 1440mAh battery managed around 5 hours of talk time. Samsung quote up to 500 hours of standby time depending on conditions.

Samsung managed to keep this handset very clean and straightforward. There are virtually no programs preloaded on the device allowing users to have only the applications that they wish to download, eliminating bloat. There is a search application that allows you to explore files on your phone much like you would do on a PC.

The Omnia’s on-screen keyboard variants all work surprisingly well. For single-handed portrait typing you can use the traditional T9 input method.  Flipping the handset into landscape mode will instantly trigger the accelerometer and allow you to use the full QWERTY keyboard. This keyboard is very well laid out for use with your thumbs. We found the Omnia not nearly as quick to type with as the iPhone; we blame this on the resistive touchscreen. As you type on the keyboard you will get visual confirmation of the key press. While this is generally a good thing, the confirmation is to the left or right of the key itself, rather than above the keys as seen on the iPhone, and as such your finger can often block it.  As with the Samsung Behold there is a box that pops up trying to predict what you are trying to type. This box is more bothersome than it is useful; it will pop up and reformat the text to wrap around itself. We grew sick of this rather quickly because it is very hard to follow what your saying when the text keeps moving.

The browser is one place that the Samsung Omnia takes a clear lead over the Behold. The included app is a customized version of the yet-to-be-released Opera Mobile 9.5 that is powered by Opera Mini’s Presto engine. Tabbed browsing is quick and rendered perfectly in full HTML. Scrolling around the page with your finger is made easier with a popup “map” of the current page.  Much like the iPhone, a double tap will either zoom in or out on the selected area. One very unique and useful feature is the zoom out control, just run your finger along the right side of the display. The browser neatly auto formats the text on a web page to fit the zoomed in screen so that you do not have to scroll back and forth all the time.

Now to the camera, this is one of the first Windows Mobile phones with a 5-megapixel camera. You can take great photos with auto-focus and flash. Unlike many new phones, such as the Touch Pro or the T-Mobile G1, the camera operates really quickly especially with the autofocus. On-screen buttons include Video Camera, Focus, Exposure, Scenes, Flash, Shot Mode, Album and Resolution. Other available settings include, Sharpness, ISO Sensitivity, Color, Contrast, Focus Mode, Compression, White Balance and Saturation.

Despite all the megapixels, we didn’t have the best experience with taking photos; for example, outside photos were saturated with color. The tone of the photo did not look very good. Indoor photos were not much better, lacking crispness, and lighting never favored the photo, even with help from the flash. Macro mode however surprised us; the flash dims itself according to the lighting conditions. We were not able to take really close photos however; the autofocus could never seem to get a good lock on the subject. Recording video can be done in MPEG4 format with up to 640 x 480 resolution at 15 frames per second. The sound comes out pretty clear, but the 15fps just doesn’t seem to do it justice and videos always come out choppy.

The Samsung Omnia has a built-in FM radio tuner, with room for 6 different presets of your choosing. Interestingly enough they decided to include a record feature in this application so you can listen to songs whenever you like.  Video quality, meanwhile, seemed stunted by the Windows Mobile limit of 65K colors making the transition poor at times. Samsung has made sure to get the word out that this handset is the first to support DivX/XviD file formats.  Other formats supported include MP4, WMV, OGG and AMR.

We also found this very interesting Vaja Leather case that goes with the overall style of the Omnia well. Starting at $75 you can personalize your case by choosing from 40 different soft tones for the exterior and interior of the case. Even add text or a graphic to make this case all your own. If you wish to have a belt holster that’s no problem, it will only cost you $5 extra. The case protects your screen from unwanted scratches while allowing access to your external keys such as the  volume and camera key.

Overall the Samsung Omnia is one of the smoothest running Windows Mobile phones on the market today. We had no issues with lag, even with several apps loaded. This was certainly one of the most fun phones to review as of late. The Omnia has restored our faith in Windows Mobile phones after playing with the HTC Touch Pro and TouchFLO 3D.

The Omnia has lived up to the saying “A truly all-in-one phone.” The Omnia takes the best of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and TouchWiz to make the users’ experience very enjoyable. Every feature from the camera to browsing the Internet works very well. There is no area that the Omnia falls short in. This device delivers all of the features of a smartphone without being overwhelming to first time users.

We would recommend this phone to anyone who loves to take pictures. The picture quality may not be top notch, but it nice shots in comparison to other 5-megapixle smartphones. Photographers will find the large amount of internal storage space more than enough for snapping photos on the go. The Samsung Omnia will be available at Verizon Wireless locations on December 8th for $249.99, when you sign a two-year agreement.

Released earlier this fall, Motorola’s Krave ZN4 from Verizon Wireless joins a strong crowd of competitors in the U.S. touch screen phone market. Unlike the Apple iPhone or the latest BlackBerry Storm, the Krave is no smartphone, but it offers features and design that is unique in its own right.

The Krave touts not one, but two innovative touch screens, a one-of-a-kind design and superior multimedia services including live television from Verizon’s VCAST Mobile TV, Rhapsody music service and the VZ Navigator GPS application.
Despite being a flip phone, the Krave’s transparent cover only enhances the phone’s vibrant 2.8-inch TFT LCD screen underneath. Additional highlights include a 2.0-megapixel camera, MP3 music player software, 3.5mm headset jack, full QWERTY keyboard and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity.

Design

The Krave’s innovative design is truly eye-catching. With two levels of touch-screen menus, this Motorola handset exudes style and technological savoir-faire. Smaller and easier to carry in a pocket than most touch screen phones, the Krave weighs 4.59 oz. and measures approximately 4.13″ (H) x 2.0″ (W) x 0.75″ (D).

It has a touch-sensitive transparent flip cover with tactile feedback. Users can conveniently view and access commonly used features. A circular Motorola emblem that doubles as a speaker to turn the Krave into a portable music player. Opening the flip answers calls, and the speaker’s opposite side reveals the earpiece.

Opened, the top of the inside screen are two buttons – one button for power and one “home” button that will return users back to the main screen. An internal microphone is located below the screen.

Both of the Krave’s touch screen offer iPhone-like navigation by sliding a finger up and down the screen.

On the left side of the phone there’s a covered 3.5mm headset jack, and below that are volume controls and a covered Micro-USB port for transferring data from the phone to another device. The Krave’s right side bears a camera-dedicated key, covered microSD memory card slot, “voice” key for recording voice memos and sending voice-activated commands, and a screen lock that deactivates the touch screen cover, preventing users from making unintended calls and exchanges.

The Krave’s rubberized back won’t get sullied by smudgy fingerprints like other shiny-surfaced touch screen phones. This is a plus considering that consumers will already have two touch screens to worry about keeping clean.

Also located on the back of the phone is the 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder lens, recessed to prevent scratching and smearing. In the phone’s left-hand corner is an enclosure for a hand strap.

Watching mobile TV and viewing picture slideshows on the Krave’s long 2.8-inch, 240 x 400 px touch screen is another one of this its great assets. During calls, buttons for mute, speakerphone, Bluetooth connections and ending calls appear on the screen.

The outward appearance of the Krave is one of a well-designed phone. But because the Krave’s touch screen duo divides the phone’s features in two places, it may take some time to learn which features are available on which screens. Another common complaint about this handset is that its transparent cover actually gets in the way of two-thumb typing on its full QWERTY keyboard.

Out of the box, the Motorola Krave ZN4 comes with a standard 950 mAh Li-Ion Battery, Power Cable and User Guide.

Camera

While the Krave’s 2.0-megapixel digital camera and camcorder are slightly better than average, the package lacks in common photo editing tools and creative features that can be found on most camera phones today. Because the Krave doesn’t have a flash or brightness/color controls, photos and video should be taken during the day or in a well-lit room for optimum picture quality. There’s also no self-portrait mirror.

What this camera phone does have is an 8x zoom, wide 240 x 320 px screen and unique slide show application that can be watched in the phone’s landscape mode by turning the handset horizontally on its side. Krave supports MPEG4, WMV, H.263 and H.264 video formats. Files can also be transferred from the phone to a PC or other device, but the USB cable for that needs to be purchased separately.

While taking pictures or video with screen cover down, about a fourth of the LCD screen becomes blank due to the positioning of the phone’s earpiece. Open up the phone and the blank space fills up with a queue of the most recently captured images.

The Krave shouldn’t be compared to top tier 5.0-megapixel camera phones like the Sony Ericsson K850i and Motorola ZINE ZN5, but if users are looking for a phone with the basics, the Krave’s gets the job done.

Basic Features

One of Krave’s unique features is its visual voicemail application from Verizon. Using the touch screen, users can scroll through their voicemail inbox, click on the messages they want to hear or delete the ones they don’t want. The Krave also comes with basic necessities including a 1,000-contact phonebook, calendar, notepad, calculator, alarm clock, world clock, tip calculator, icon glossary and text display in English or Spanish.

Special functions include passcode protection, a check for software updates, airplane mode, TTY mode for the hearing impaired, voice readout for keypad digits and voice commands for sending messages, calls and activating music playlists. The Krave doesn’t come with any games, but they are available for download on the phone’s web browser.

Add a personal touch to the Krave by choosing from a selection of wallpapers and 24 polyphonic ringtone options. Features like alert sounds, keypad volume and display backlight can also be modified to any preferences.

The Krave uses a 950 mAh battery with an impressive standby time of 500 hours (20.8 days) and talk time of 260 minutes (4.33 hours).

Verizon is selling the phone with a two-year service agreement for $179.99, after a $50 online discount. The package comes with a travel charger, 950 mAh battery and user guide. The Krave is reasonably priced, not too expensive and also not the cheapest touch screen phone in Verizon’s lineup. Other similarly priced touch screen phones from Verizon include the Samsung Omnia and LG Dare.

Screen

The Krave’s transparent cover is its most distinctive feature. Embedded with an imperceptible touch-sensitive mesh layer, the cover not only protects the 2.8-inch LCD screen below, but it also serves as a touch screen menu with tactile feedback.

It displays images at 240 x 400 px when open and 240 x 320 px when closed – smaller than the iPhone and most other multimedia phones with touch screens. Using Thin Film Transistor LCD technology (TFT), the Krave’s 65K-color screen displays vibrant graphics, photos and text with no refresh delays and gorgeous clarity. Screen lighting and backlight time can be changed to suit users’ preferences.

With the flip cover down, the screen menu displays icons for music, Verizon VCAST TV, pictures and VZ Navigation. Flipped up, the touch screen shows a new set of shortcut icons for messages, the dialpad, contacts and the Krave’s main menu of 12 links to the Verizon web browser, phone settings, Bluetooth connections, call history, visual voicemail and more.

Touch the screen anywhere to go to the main menu. Consumers can navigate through the Krave’s various pages. A convenient “back” arrow key that appears at the top of the screen.

Both of the Krave’s touch screen menus feature tactile feedback and scrolling menus that move by sliding a finger up and down the screen. When viewing any of the Krave’s menus, users can see the phone’s signal strength, roaming indicator, Internet or device connections and battery life displayed in the top banner.

Audio

On the Krave, call and data networks are Evolution-Data Optimized (1xEv-DO) and enhanced by dual-band CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) frequencies at 800 MHz and 1900 MHz. The result: high-speed voice and mobile data streaming that yields excellent call quality and fewer dropped calls.

Overall, call quality for the Krave – in regular mode and speakerphone – was first-rate and static free. In addition to vibrate only, alarm only and an all-sounds-off mode, there are five levels of volume to choose from. When switched to its highest level, call volume can be intimidating and loud, but for some, this won’t necessarily be a bad thing.

As a music player, the Krave handles MP3 and AAC audio files and connects to online music stores from Verizon VCAST Music and Rhapsody. The player is easy to use with customizable playlists, shuffle, repeat modes and an album cover flow display where users can move from one song to the next by tapping on the screen.

Although the Krave is equipped with a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, headphones are sold separately. Songs sound best with when using headphones, as audio quality is a little low on the bass side, but otherwise good. While answering calls or using other applications, the music will pause automatically then restart once you return to the player screen. As the song plays, Krave’s high-resolution screen displays track information, album art and player controls.

Additional audio features on the Krave include speakerphone, visual voice mail and voice recording for up to an hour, depending on the phone’s available memory.

Messaging

SMS text messages can be sent with up to 1,000 characters to 10 recipients at a time. Save time by choosing from a list of 12 preset messages ranging from a simple “Let’s meet” to a more forward “Would you like to join me for a date tonight?” Have something important to say? Mark messages as urgent to let contacts know what’s important. The Krave also allows users to create 20-second video and pic-voice messages to help users send a strong statement.

Turn the phone sideways to activate the touch QWERTY keyboard, or keep the alphanumeric dial pad to text in portrait mode. Both formats utilize Motorola’s iTAP predictive text program and give tactile feedback and are comfortable for one-handed texting.

The Krave comes with email configurations for Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL, AIM, Verizon.net and mobile POP3 email services for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live, Gmail and AOL mail. Instant messaging on the Krave is set for AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo! Messenger.

There are some flaws with the Krave’s QWERTY keyboard. One minor difference we found was that it didn’t use automatic first-letter caps. Hit the shift key once for caps and remember to hit it a second time to go back to lowercase type. The second hitch was that the Krave’s transparent touch cover makes it physically impossible (or at least very difficult) for double thumb typing like on most other handsets with QWERTY.

Entertainment

Verizon VCAST Mobile TV and Music lets consumers to take their calls and entertainment with them wherever they go. With the touch cover down, they can access menu links for videos or music. Once users have made their selection, turn the phone horizontally for a 240 x 320 px wide-screen view of favorite shows or use a finger to swipe through album covers in queue.

Starting at a subscription fee of $13 per month, VCAST Mobile TV offers live television programming straight to the phone from networks including CNBC, CBS, Comedy Central, ESPN, Comedy Central and MTV. This is television that’s sure to add enjoyment to midday coffee breaks and idle moments.

If users don’t have enough music already, Verizon downloads via Rhapsody are $1.99 for each song or $14.99 for unlimited access. On a PC, they can browse and purchase tunes from the VCAST Music online store via Windows Media Player 10. Then manage their music library, create playlists and sync songs to the phone.

Verizon VCAST also offers 3G streaming video, downloadable games, display themes, ringtones and more at prompt download speeds of about 500 kbps to 800 kbps.

Internet

Although the Krave’s futuristic design might suggest otherwise, Internet options on this Motorola phone haven’t changed much. Users can view HTML sites, but the phone will default to mobile versions. Users shouldn’t expect mobile web menus to give the same experience as surfing the Internet on an iPhone or a comparable smartphone device.

Unlike some touch screen phones that allow consumers to surf the web by touching links directly on the screen, the Krave’s web browser uses a touch screen navigation ring and cursor to point at links. Some may consider control of the cursor jumpy and cumbersome, so learning to maneuver it will take some getting used to.

Nonetheless, Verizon’s 3G EV-DO network is a true plus. New pages don’t take forever to load, and downloads are easier to come by. Krave also supports Verizon’s VZ Navigator service, which gives audible directions, traffic updates, maps and points of interest like restaurants and movie theaters.

Similar to its music player and other features, the VZ Navigator can also be viewed in landscape mode when the phone is turned horizontally.

Storage

With 130 MB of internal memory and a micoSD card slot that supports up to an additional 8GB (around 2,000 songs), the Motorola Krave is a data storing powerhouse among multimedia cell phones. Users wrho plan on using the phone as a portable music player should invest in a memory card. Extra storage and USB cables for are sold separately.

The Krave can store 1,000 phonebook contacts with space in each entry for five numbers (labeled under home, work and fax), two email addresses, photo ID and a customized ringtone.

Connectivity

The Krave supports some of the more popular Bluetooth 2.0 wireless connections. Headset Profile (HSP) and Hands-Free Profile (HFP) such as handsfree car kits or conference room devices can be enabled for use within a 10-meter distance from the phone. Dial-Up Networking (DUN) allows the phone to be used as a modem for a laptop or PDA. And for stereo sound, AVRCP and A2DP profiles will send audio from your phone to a Bluetooth compatible device.

Phone book access (PBAP) lets users share contacts, name card and calendar entries. Other profiles on the Krave include Basic Printing Profile (BPP) for Bluetooth-enabled printers, Object-Push Profile (OPP) for sending virtual business cards and File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

Bluetooth accessories for the Krave are sold separately.