Consumer Reports top 5 smartphones will surprise you

Consumer Reports is a great publication, online or print, that does a very thorough job testing, rating and reporting on various consumer products.  They usually are good at defining what is important to the consumer and designing criteria for rating products in a given category.  It was with great surprise when Matt Miller pointed out that Consumer Reports has released their list of the top 5 smartphones.  The surprise is two-fold- some of the phones that made this short list and especially those that didn't make the top 5.

Here's the top 5 smartphones according to Consumer Reports:

• Samsung Blackjack II
• T-Mobile Wing
• Motorola Q9C
• T-Mobile Shadow
• Blackberry Pearl Flip

These phones are all fine smartphones but it is surprising that only one Blackberry made the cut, and where the heck is the iPhone 3G?  The iPhone 3G was further down the list and actually tied with the T-Mobile G1.  Interesting list to say the least.

Palm's software store is (finally) open for business

Well that was quick and slow at the same time. Just yesterday, I penned some thoughts about Palm's Nova announcements coming in a few weeks at CES. One of those predictions, admittedly not much of a stretch, was that Palm would follow Apple and Google by launching their own application store. Turns out that Palm quick did just that last night. It's also slow because Palm practically invented the smartphone market earlier this decade, but is now playing follow the leader, which usually isn't good.

Palm should have leveraged their vast array of in-house and third-party applications long before this as they had a clear, competitive advantage. Namely, the number of Palm OS titles and smartphones on the market as early as 2002... anyone remember the Treo 180? Now Palm has over 5,000 applications (over 1,000 are free), which Venture Beat notes is half that of the Apple's iTunes App Store and ten times more than Google's Android Marketplace.

Numbers and strategies aside, Palm's store is here now and available for download. The company has partnered with PocketGear, a long-time handheld software vendor; I haven't yet seen any details if developer terms are modeled after that of Apple and Google.

Update: Mobile Crunch indicates that developers will see 50% of software sale revenues, which is far less than Google, Apple and even RIM are offering.

Shoot callers of your choice to voicemail with Do Not Disturb

Considering my iPhone is ringing off the hook with CES meeting requests, Trinket Software's latest application has me considering a move to Windows Mobile. Their Do Not Disturb software is still in beta, but it's just what I need right now. Using the software, you customize settings for your WinMo 5, 6, or 6.1 phone to force incoming calls to voicemail without your handset even ringing.

Do Not Disturb allows you to set which contacts, phone numbers or categories are allowed to disturb you... or not. You can also set profiles for contact groupings as well. It looks handy, but you'll want to get in now on the beta since the application is due for general release next month and is expected to cost between $5 and $10.

(via Jason Langridge)

Palm at CES: super-Nova or white dwarf?

There's quite the buzz over a Business Week story today on Palm and their new Nova operating system. Word is that Palm will uncover Nova in a few short weeks at CES; we've got our invites, so we'll see what the "new-ness" is all about. Based on a couple of excerpts from the BW article, I've got a few insights as to where this is heading but that's speculation on my part. It's far to early to say if the new Palm platform will shine like a super-nova or peter-out like a like a white dwarf.

Street View comes to Google Maps 2.3 on Symbian S60, Windows Mobile

Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile devices finally join the handset crowd capable of Street View in Google Maps for Mobile. Google Android, Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry platform have been enjoying this useful feature already, which offers street level imagery in supported locations. S60 and WinMo owners can point their device browsers to http://www.google.com/gmm to download version 2.3 of Google Maps.

Verizon locates switch to enable GPS on RIM 8330, 8130

It's nearly 18 months since we struggled with the GPS radio that wasn't meant to be on the BlackBerry 8830. Oh, the device has a GPS radio, but Verizon Wireless disabled it when the 8830 debuted on the VZW network. Eventually, that got resolved, although not in the way we had hoped. Similar shenanigans continued on the network with RIM's 8330 Curve and 8130 Pearl, but Boy Genius reports that Verizon Wireless has enabled the embedded GPS radio to work on the handset, and not just for the premium VZ Navigator service they offer.

Unfortunately, the radio only appears to work with the integrated BlackBerry Maps program at this point, so if you have a Curve or Pearl and were counting on Google Maps and the GPS, you'll be let down.

I have no issue with the carriers making a fair profit and offering add-on value services, but the disabling or limiting of hardware features has to stop. It's like buying a new car with a high-end stereo system and then not being able to listen to music while driving because the dealer claims they haven't tested the radio's effect on the roads. VZW: if you have to test advertised hardware features in handsets on your network, that's fine. Just pick up the pace so the features get enabled before the handset model sees EOL.

Smartphones: Symbian sinks under 50% share, Apple races past Windows Mobile

A few months back, we looked at the worldwide smartphone market numbers and watched RIM jump past Windows Mobile. Mac OS X handset sales, i.e.: the iPhone, more than doubled year-over-year and perennial market leader Symbian was in danger of dipping below the 50% line. Fast forward to today thanks to Gartner's 3rd quarter numbers and you can see that the trends are continuing. For some that's good, while others were already declining in market share and they keep sinking. Note: while other similar research came to light this week, I'm focusing on Gartner's numbers simply for consistency because I used them a quarter ago.

NYT's Pogue disses, really, really disses the Blackberry Storm

We've offered up our own coverage of the Blackberry Storm, the keyboardless smartphone just released by Verizon in the US last week.  We're still using the heck out of it a week later and so far our opinion of it hasn't changed from that we shared originally.  That's not the case with a lot of reviewers and the latest to jump in the ring with the Storm is the New York Times' David Pogue.

Pogue makes it clear, really, really clear that he hates the Storm.  His review is brutal to say the least and if my experience with the Storm had been anything like his I would be just as grumpy.  He's not finding anything that works the way it's supposed to work and it's obvious he's just plain irked at the phone.

But wait, there’s less. Both of my review Storms had more bugs than a summer picnic. Freezes, abrupt reboots, nonresponsive controls, cosmetic glitches.

My favorite: when I try to enter my Gmail address, the Storm’s camera starts up unexpectedly, turning the screen into a viewfinder — even though the keyboard still fills half the screen. (RIM executives steadfastly refused to acknowledge any bugs. I even sent them videos of the Storm’s goofball glitches, but they offered only stony phone silence.)

Whew!  That's one unhappy camper!  The entire review he's written is as scathing and negative as this snippet I've shared so you can see his experience has been not only bad but horrible. 

I don't know what to tell David other than this is the opposite of my own experience of a week with a Storm.  It's not perfect, I haven't found a gadget yet that is in all respects.  But it does what I expect it to and I just haven't seen all the glitches and freezes that Pogue mentions.  I'm not saying he doesn't have them, maybe there's a quality control problem letting bad units go out the door. 

I will say that after reading Pogue's review it is plain that he finds a touchscreen Blackberry without a keyboard to be silly.  That smacks of "preconceived displeasure" to me and maybe that's coloring his impression a bit.  I'm just sayin'.

Xperia X1 Xpands: Facebook, Windows Live, Dashwire panels

Some are calling Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 the "best Windows Mobile phone in business" and whether you believe that or not, you can't argue that the handset's on-screen panels make it unique. The large, touchable panels are akin to widgets or applications that sit atop the base Windows Mobile user interface. Part of me believes that the Xperia's panels are not just for quick-and-easy access to useful apps. Since Microsoft doesn't offer a centralized mobile application store as Apple and Google do, I'm wondering how large the downloadable Sony Ericsson software offering could get.

It actually gets a little larger today with the addition of three new panels:

• Facebook - Om returned his X1 review unit just before this launched, and that's probably a good thing or  he'd be a social butterfly and get nothing done. With the new Facebook panel, there's a new visual representation of your friend's status, you can upload photos directly, even use a click-to-call feature to actually speak to your online friends. Imagine that!
• Microsoft Windows Live - With a Windows Live ID, you can sync contact information stored in the cloud with your local X1 contact list. This panel also offers access to Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger for even more communication options.
• Dashwire - Here you can automatically sync information between your X1 and a Dashwire account in the cloud. Contacts, text messages, photos, videos, calls and settings from your X1 can all be viewed from a web browser on any computer. Looks like it provides some peace of mind as a backup of your phone's data.

Hanging out with the T-Mobile G1, iPhone 3G and the Blackberry Storm

I take this mobile tech stuff seriously.  I review a lot of gadgets and smartphones certainly play a big role in that coverage.  I have voice and data plans on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile which I pay far too much for but I need them to be able to play with all the phones I get in my hands.  Right now in front of me I have what are undoubtedly the hottest smartphones available on all three of those networks.  Sitting on the table is the iPhone 3G, the T-Mobile G1 and the Blackberry Storm.  You have to agree those are the hottest smartphones in the US right now and I'm in the unusual position to compare the three for your edification.  OK, mainly it's because I like to play with them.

How do they compare?  That's not really a fair question because at the basest level they are totally different phones that should appeal to different users.  What I find the most interesting about this comparison is that all three phones are smartphones that are aimed at the consumer.  This is a big change from the not so distant past when smartphones were almost exclusively the domain of the enterprise worker.  The phones such as these three have straddled the fence and shown the consumer that the benefits of good smartphones are not restricted to the enterprise.