Resistive Vs. Capacitive Touchscreens, What’s The Difference?

We’ve been subjected to a deluge of touch screen phones ever since the release of the iPhone, and whilst some provide a smooth and slick experience, others don’t always feel quite up to snuff.

That is because in reality, there are two different types of touchscreen technology that these phones take advantage of – resistive and capacitive.

Whilst capacitive touch screens offer a faster and more responsive experience, resistive touch screens tend to be cheaper to manufacture and have a greater degree of accuracy.

Also, resistive touch screens can also be used with a stylus, which is important for handwriting recognition and writing Asian characters, and arguably a major contributing factor to why capacitive touch phones like the iPhone haven’t gotten such a warm response in the East.

Windows phones have resistive touchscreens as standard, whilst high end devices from companies like LG and Samsung tend to be capacitive. The Windows Mobile operating system is currently unable to support the capacitive touch screen, but all that is set to change with Windows 7 on phones, and steps are being made toward this even on the forthcoming ‘6.5′ update.

Resistive touchscreens are composed of several layers of plastic, and input is registered when two of these layers become joined by the external pressure of a finger or stylus, creating an electrical connection.

Capacitive touchscreens are traditionally a glass panel coated with a transparent conductive material. As the human body conducts electricity, any touch on the surface of the screen triggers the electric field and registers the location of the input. Capacitive touchscreens can more readily accept continuous input across the surface, and also track multiple fingers on a single display.

Haptic feedback, the reassuring vibration of menu or item selection, can be done on both resistive and capacitive touchscreens. Resistive touch screen phones include Windows-powered devices like the HTC Touch Diamond 2 and HTC Touch Pro 2.

Many of the latest smart phones, including ones powered by Android, have capacitive touchscreens including the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G2 Touch, LG Arena, Samsung Pixon12 and the Sony Ericsson Satio.

What does the future of touch phones have in store? Well, the recently released Samsung Jet may have a resistive display, but relies on the internal processor to provide a super-responsive interface rivalling that of capacitive devices. Also, BlackBerry makers RIM have been working hard on a new hybrid interface that is the best of both worlds.

The outer of the two layers has a conductive coating, allowing both types of interaction through a single controller-integrated circuit. According to the company’s application, “the capacitive and resistive functions of the touchscreen do not interfere with each other”.

“Advantageously, a touch of the touchscreen display can be detected prior to contact with the touchscreen display,” the application continues. “Thus, a signal can be sent to the processor for providing a timely response when the touchscreen is touched. For example, a tactile feedback can be provided more quickly, providing a better user feel.”

So, a mobile device marrying the responsiveness of a capacitive interface with the accuracy and stylus support of a resistive touchscreen could well be around the corner…

Omio Round Up: Best Bluetooth Headsets

Despite the passage of many years and many leaps forward in technology, listening to music still requires us to be physically tethered to our players with headphones.

Phones have managed it, as have game controllers, but the allure of wired headphones has not seems to diminish one bit. Some manufacturers are even embracing this state of affairs, with companies Apple showing off their iconic white earphones in their cool promotional material.

Well, other manufacturers believe the future is already here, and with the power of Bluetooth connectivity are offering to free us of our aural shackles with wireless headphones. We compare two of the most popular Bluetooth headsets to see if we are ready to groove to the wireless beat.

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Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800 Bluetooth stereo headphones - £70

The tiny, unassuming ear-canal fillers are close enough to traditional earphones not to scare Bluetooth virgins away. The two earphones jut out a little and feel a little heavy on first wear – hardly surprising given the amount of tech bundled in there.

The weight is due to the housing of the battery within the ear piece itself, removing a cover on the right earbud reveals a charging port. This enables the proprietary Sony Ericsson charger to be used, albeit in a slightly odd fashion with only half of the pins…

Nevertheless, a few hours on the mains and the IS800 is ready to rock. The subtle light on the earpiece glows green brightly to reassure you, with the only accompanying indication from an LED on the microphone placed halfway down the wire.

Holding down this central button sparks the IS800 into life, the light alternating red and green as it searches for a Bluetooth buddy to pair with. This takes fairly little time, and the auto-connecting with a compatible phone is even quicker as it eschews the need for a pairing passcode.

Once hooked up, the first big surprise is the audio! It genuinely manages to play stereo in almost lossless quality, but it admittedly dips with a fair amount of hiss when moving away from the source.

The wires are far more comfortable when worn behind the head, although it makes the speaker when using the IS800 as a headset for calls a bit far away from the mouth to remain clear.

Fellow commuters were convinced I had a serious crick in my neck as I craned to the left in order to make calls, but when connected the quality was clear as a bell.

All in all, the IS800 headphones are perfect for situations where wires leave one in a tangled mess on the floor, from the daily commute to a workout in the gym.

Touches like the carry case and ergonomic design make them a perfect fashion accessory to any Bluetooth-enabled device. The only setback is that the earbuds themselves feel somewhat heavy for long term use, and the slightly awkward location of the microphone.

Nevertheless, the HBH-IS800 gets a glowing recommendation from us, a perfect combination of stylish form and Bluetooth practicality!

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Altec Lansing BackBeat 906 wireless stereo headphones – £80

With the power of wireless communications professionals Plantronics behind them, Altec Lansing seems set to cut a swathe through the wireless headset market, marrying bleeding-edge tech to slick designs.

Whilst a confident effort, the Altec Lansing Backbeat 906 may indeed be too utilitarian to appeal to culture vultures.

The Backbeat is similar to the IS800 in that it consists of two earphones with a connector that rests behind the head.

However, the BackBeat is a far more rigid construction, with each resting on the ear in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to wearing two tethered hearing aids, whilst the tips nestle gently, yet securely inside the canal.

This might sound uncomfortable, and in comparison to traditional earphones the additional weight may prove alien, but before long the value of the noise cancelling technology presents itself, tuning out background chatter and the sounds of the Underground effectively.

The only issue is that the connection between them is a tad too short, making them feel secure on the head but at the same time a little constricting.

The upside to these very visible aural accouterments is that a wealth of music control is at your fingertips on the outside of the BackBeat.

The left earpiece is home to a ‘call’ button as well as the power switch, whilst the right can play/pause, skip through tracks and adjust volume thanks to a multi-functional jog switch. The degree of rotation and adjustment of the earpieces themselves make them very comfortable to use as remote controls, but they still look a little too unwieldy to impress.

Stereo Bluetooth supported devices can sync happily with the 906, and if not there is a little black box supplied which provides connection to any gadgets with a 3.5mm port, iPod included. The range is ample, with the ability to stray at these the width of Omio Towers (10/15 metres) before a signal was lost.

The good news for the legions of iPhone owners is that the new update finally brings headphone support to wireless headsets like this, and the 906 is very impressive. When hooked to a mobile and the phone rings, the music cuts out and a beep notifies of the call.

The call quality was pretty impressive, but it seemed we could hear better than be heard, particularly outdoors… The AudioIQ volume-boosting feature came into its own in situations like this, making chatting away clear as a bell.

Nevertheless, even the more fancy features such as voice activated dialing and iPod control went off without a hitch on the BackBeat 906.

The seven hour battery life was pretty spot on, but we found it retained a charge when playing music far more than making a couple of wireless calls throughout the day. Either way, it shouldn’t let you down.

Whilst getting full marks for function, the BackBeat makes a few missteps in the style stakes to not be the definitive choice. The lack of an adjustable strap, the absence of a carry case and the slightly self-conscious design make it the perfect Bluetooth headset for use at the office, rather than one to show off with.

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Verdict

Each have their pluses and minuses when enjoying the world of music without wires, but the sheer range of features, Bluetooth dongle and almost pitch-perfect phone reception make the BackBeat stand out in our minds. The price difference is borne out with Altec Lansing offer in a rare case of substance over style, and it serves as a perfect accompaniment to the new 3GS, provided you aren’t a fashion victim.

Omio Round Up: Best RSS Readers For The iPhone

There are only so many moron quizzes, air-traffic control games and dubious flashlight apps to try out before it becomes apparent that the iPhone was destined for something more interesting and less banal.

If you want to keep up with the latest news and posts from every blog, magazine and newspaper on the planet, you’ll need an RSS reader. On the desktop, web-apps such as Google Reader, Netvibes and Bloglines lead the way.  But on the iPhone it’s a different story. And so, Omio set out on a quest to find the iPhone’s best RSS app.

It was harder than we expected. Much harder.

What we were looking for:

Easy feed import. We’re heavy users of RSS in the Omio office. My Netvibes page is home to 214 feeds which contain over 4000 articles between them. Any decent RSS app would have to provide a straightforward way of importing all those feeds. It’d also allow me to remove less important feeds, which I don’t want to read on the iPhone.

Article caching. What’s the point of having an on-the-go RSS reader if I can’t read the feeds when making the sweaty daily commute on the London Underground? Plus, it’d be great to have access to the accompanying pictures, not just the text.

Flexible feed organisation. The way that someone chooses to organise their feeds in Netvibes or Google Reader isn’t necessarily the same way they’d organise them on an iPhone. You might want a different folder structure, or even no folder structure at all. The app should allow feeds to be moved between folders, along with the creation and deletion of those folders.

Everyday Use. The app should download and update feeds quickly and be responsive to button presses. It should be easy to navigate between folders, feeds and articles. Articles should be clearly listed, previewed and displayed.

Byline

Phantom Fish – £2.99, download from iTunes App Store.

Byline is currently the most downloaded RSS reader in the App Store. Its popularity is probably attributable to its tight integration with Google Reader. Like most of the apps listed here, it will import feeds from Google Reader in a snap. But unlike the others, it remains totally synchronised with Google Reader as you use it. Items read in Byline appear read in Google Reader. Items starred in Byline appear starred in Google Reader. And so on. If you’re utterly wedded to Google Reader this is going to be manna from heaven. If you’re not, then it’s just plain annoying.

It’s annoying because a consequence of the Google Reader synchronisation is that nothing can be edited, added or removed inside Byline. It’s impossible to add new feeds, move feeds between folders or create new folders. Everything will appear exactly as you’ve configured it in Google Reader.

Even worse, it’s not possible to just open up a single feed. Instead, the content of each folder is presented as a ‘river of news’. If you just want to check out the latest news from a specific feed then you’re out of luck. It’s difficult to overstate just how infuriating this is. To mitigate this issue, Byline places a button in the top-right corner (which looks confusingly like a refresh button). This reorders the presentation of stories inside the folder by feed. But if the feed you want is at the bottom of the page then too bad: you’ll just have to scroll all the way down to the bottom. It doesn’t even support favicons to speed-up feed identification inside the folder.

It’s not all doom-and-gloom though. Byline competently caches all the articles for offline reading. It’ll also cache the images from starred items. Rather brilliantly (and in contrast to most of the other apps in this review), it resizes images so that they fit on the screen, avoiding the use of horizontal scrolling. It will open links inside the app without having to load Safari, refreshes feeds quickly and is responsive in use.

Ultimately, your opinion of Byline will be determined by your relationship with Google Reader. If you want to replicate the desktop experience as closely as possible on your iPhone then Byline is the app for you. But if you want any flexibility with the organisation and display of your feeds, then you should go elsewhere.

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Feed Import: 5

Very fast, but restricted to Google Reader.

Article caching: 8

A competent implementation. Image caching raises it above the competition.

Flexible feed organisation: 0

No options at all. Everything is managed via Google Reader.

Everyday Use: 4

Feeds refresh quickly. The app remains responsive during refreshes. But… the enforced river-of-news presentation makes it cumbersome to actually use.

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Newsstand

OMZ Software – £2.99, download from iTunes App Store.

Newsstand is a competent RSS reader whose USP is its distinctive landscape viewing mode.

When the screen is rotated, the feeds are presented as a series of magazines on a shelf, which the user can flick through horizontally. It’s a interesting riff on Apple’s coverflow concept, but Newsstand takes it a stage further by presenting the feed contents in landscape split-screen. The left-side contains the index, while the right-side shows the currently selected article.

It’s a unique way of displaying feeds, but it’s more interesting than effective. The problem is that there just isn’t enough space to read the article in the split-screen view. Only a fraction of the article can be displayed. And forget about trying to view pictures in such a small space. It comes across as a gimmick rather than a feature that would stand up to heavy use. Happily, it can be disabled.

Feed import options are excellent, with built-in support from Google Reader, Bloglines and OPML. Keep in mind that if you choose OPML, you’ll need to upload your OPML data to a URL as the iPhone doesn’t support access to local files.

Regarding feed organisation, Newsstand does pretty much everything. It’s easy to create new folders and move feeds between them. Nested folders are supported too. A minor irritation is that moving several feeds from one folder into another is pretty laborious, but this is unlikely to be a common operation.

In everyday use, Newsstand does an admirable job. Navigating between folders, feeds and articles is reasonably fast and straightforward. The presence of favicons makes it easy to identify the desired feed in a long list. Articles can be viewed on their original website without opening Safari.  One annoyance is that images are not resized, which can necessitate lots of horizontal scrolling. It’s surprising that so many apps have failed to implement an auto-resize feature.

Unread or flagged articles can optionally be displayed ‘river of news style’, although this tends to slow down the navigation if there are lots of unread articles.

Additional features include sharing with Twitter and Delicious, and display ‘themes’ which make (optionally) make Newsstand looks like a typewriter. It isn’t clear why someone would want to do this, but the option is there if you want it.

A great inclusion is concurrent feed downloads. This enables Newsstand to refresh up to 3 feeds simultaneously, which will save a lot of time if you’ve got a lot of subscriptions. However, it loses marks for the degree to which it slows down during feed refreshes, especially when it’s in landscape mode. It’s also slow to load: typically taking around 3 seconds to appear – even on the iPhone 3GS.

It also restricts each feed to a maximum of 50 items. This could be a frustrating restriction if you read blogs which publish a lot of articles.

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Feed Import: 8

Fast and more comprehensive than most of its rivals

Article caching: 6

Caches text but not images.

Flexible feed organisation: 8

Lots of options and very straightforward to use.

Everyday use: 7

Pretty competent if you forget about the gimmicky landscape mode. The Twitter sharing option will appeal to Twitter-holics.

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Reader – ATOM/RSS Feed Reader

Enormego – £1.79, download from iTunes App Store.

Frustrating. Very frustrating. This app has the potential for greatness: a well thought out UI; lots of flexibility in organising and viewing feeds and items; and excellent import options. But in practice, it’s slow, crash-prone and things just don’t work as they should. If the author could fix these problems (particularly the speed issues), Reader would immediately become our preferred RSS app. Instead it’ll sit on my iPhone unused and unloved.

The import options are particularly inviting with their support for Netvibes and My Yahoo! in addition to the eponymous Google Reader. In practice though, the Netvibes import crashed every time I tried to use it. Google Reader worked, but took a little longer than the other apps and the app appeared frozen for a while.

Once the feeds are imported, the options for viewing, organising and sorting far outstrip any other app in this review. Even better, the UI is straightforward and intuitive. Feeds can be grouped into folders/categories, or sorted by date and name. It provides a great method for selecting favourite feeds (in addition to favourite items). Images are nicely resized. And there’s even a ‘river-of-news’ view for people who like that kind of thing. In short, it provides pretty much every type of RSS view imaginable. And it does so without making the UI feel cluttered.

There are even a few features we haven’t seen on other apps. Each feed has its own configuration options, which, for example, enables a partial-feed to automatically open items on its full site. Although other apps allow specific items to be opened on the full site, they they don’t allow per-feed configuration so that it happens automatically. Lists of items can be striped to improve readability, and oversized favicons make it easier to spot the desired feed in a long list.

Twitter and Instapaper integration are included too…

But… the app falls apart whenever you try to do, well, pretty much anything. Nearly every button press results in a long wait during which it’s not clear whether the app has crashed or is just ‘thinking’. Sometimes, the app gets frozen on the current screen. Sometimes a lined white screen appears, with no items on it at all.

It feels like the developer has put all his efforts into features, and paid no attention to performance or stability. Towards the end of writing this review, Reader got itself into a state where it would no longer open without crashing.

It’s a shame that Reader doesn’t live up to its potential. Nevertheless, it’s worth keeping an eye on this app. If the performance and stability issues can be resolved in a future release, it will be hands-down the best RSS reader on the iPhone.

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Feed Import: 3

Netvibes import doesn’t work. Google Reader import is slow.

Article caching: 6

Caches text but not images.

Flexible feed organisation: 10

As good as it gets. Every possible way of organising and displaying feeds.

Everyday use: 0

It just doesn’t work.

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Pro RSS

Simon Oualid – £1.19, download from iTunes App Store.

I can probably save you the bother of reading the rest of the review. If you don’t care about full synchronisation with Google Reader, then Pro RSS is the one to buy. It’s fast, it’s stable, there are decent folder options and it caches nicely – even images.

To be sure, it’s not the most exciting app. It doesn’t have the gimmickry of Newsstand, nor the options of Reader, and there’s no integration with Twitter or any social bookmarking services. Sometimes it’s almost too spartan: favicons are a serious omission.

But this can be forgiven for the way it just gets on with things. It starts up quickly. Feed import is the best we’ve seen, with support for Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator and OPML. Pro RSS cleverly sidesteps the iPhone’s difficulties with OPML files by providing a local IP address through which the user’s OPML file can be uploaded using a computer. This is a trick which the other RSS readers would do well to replicate.

Pro RSS handily allows up to 5 feeds to be refreshed simultaneously, resulting in a serious time-saving if you’ve got lots of feeds. The app slows down a little though if many feeds are being refreshed in the background.

Folders and feeds can be edited and re-ordered manually, but there are no sorting options. Items are cached by default, and images can be cached too via the ‘Load Image’ button. This is nice to see, and a great improvement over other apps which only allow image caching on a per-item basis (or not at all). Annoyingly though, images are not resized to fit the screen. Even more annoyingly, there is no landscape mode. So if the text is to small or the image won’t fit, you’re left to do a lot of scrolling.

Finally, if you shake the phone, Pro RSS automatically switches to a full-screen view by hiding all the toolbars. A quick shake brings them back again. All-in-all, Pro RSS is a great app and Omio’s recommended RSS reader. There’s a even a free cut-down version available (called Free RSS) if you want to try-before-you-buy.

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Feed Import: 9

Lack of Netvibes import is the only thing which holds Pro RSS back from a perfect 10.

Article caching: 9

Caches text and images with aplomb.

Flexible feed organisation: 7

Pretty flexible. Not always as straightforward as it should be, but it does work.

Everyday use: 8

This is Omio’s recommended RSS reader for the iPhone.

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Manifesto

Mayor Justin – £1.19, download from iTunes App Store.

Another simple, stripped-back RSS reader. Manifesto lacks folder support, so if you read a lot of feeds you’ll probably need to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, for the casual user, Manifesto is a good option.

Feed import is restricted to Google Reader, but runs quickly. Favicons show up in the main list of feeds, but the absence of folders makes can make it tedious to reach the feed you want.

Annoyingly, the feed view only contains the titles of each article. Unlike most other apps in this review, there is no preview of a couple of lines of the article.

A persistent bug in Manifesto prevented the ‘cancel’ button from working in any of the pop-up menus. This was obviously very annoying and would put us off from using the app. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in the next release.

Manifesto claims ‘Quick flag’ and ‘Flip web’ as its standout features. In reality, ‘Quick flag’ is just another way of describing ‘starred’ or ‘favourite’ articles. And ‘Flip web’ just allows items to be opened in their original web page without opening the browser. Admittedly, ‘Flip web’ is accompanied by a nice animation, but neither of these features are anything special.

Overall, Manifesto just doesn’t offer enough. It’s all very well trying to produce an app which cuts out the extraneous features and fripperies. But this app takes it one step too far. The absence of folders and article previews means that we can’t wholeheartedly recommend Manifesto.

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Feed Import: 5

Google Reader only.

Article caching: 7

Caches text. Images are cached in flagged articles.

Flexible feed organisation: 3

No folder support. No options to sort feeds.

Everyday use: 4

Missing too many features.

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Web Feeds

Tuomas Artman – £1.79, download from iTunes App Store

This is another simple RSS reader. Feed import is sadly limited to Google Reader but works very fast. In fact, speed is a major plus of this app. It’s super smooth. Even when refreshing multiple feeds, it never seems to slow down. It’s a trick which many of its competitors seem unable to manage.

The look-and-feel of the UI is is very reminiscent of the iPhone’s built-in Mail app. If Apple decided to write their own RSS app, it would probably look very much like this.

The UI is simple, but it’s also restrictive. The lack of folder support make this app unsuitable for people who read a lot of feeds. Favicons help a little, but clearly this app is most suited to light users.

There’s no getting away from the fact that this app is feature-poor. There are no options for sorting or organising feeds and articles. It does include a somewhat odd function which enables the user to collect a bunch of articles and then send them in a single email. This feature seems a little unnecessary, but we haven’t seen it anywhere else.

Web Feeds is just ‘ok’. If you’re looking for a really simple reader, with a very Apple-y design to deal with just a handful of feeds, then this is the app for you. If you’re even slightly more demanding, then look elsewhere.

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Feed Import: 5

Google Reader only.

Article caching: 5

Text only.

Flexible feed organisation: 3

No folder support. No options to sort feeds.

Everyday use: 6

Picks up extra marks for the clean design and speed, but not good enough for heavy users.

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RSS Runner

Francois Goldgewicht – free, download from iTunes App Store.

RSS Runner is the only free app in this review. Unsurprisingly, its functionality is fairly basic, but no more so than some of the commercial offerings we looked at here. It even includes some uncommon (but desirable) features such as sorting feeds by title.

The design of the UI isn’t especially pleasing. There’s an awkward contrast of blue and black buttons. And inexplicably, little clouds are used to illustrate the number of articles inside each feed.

Import of feeds from Google reader is quick. But there’s no support for other sites such as Netvibes.

There’s also no support for folders, so RSS Runner is plainly unsuitable for users who have lots of feeds. And the listing of articles inside the feed is poor, with heavily truncated titles and no preview text. Worse, the app crashed a few times while we were reviewing it.

It’s not a galloping surprise that the developers aren’t charging for RSS Runner: it’s difficult to imagine who would pay for it. If you absolutely won’t hand over any cash for your RSS reader, try Free RSS instead (the cut-down version of Pro RSS)

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Feed Import: 5

Google Reader only.

Article caching: 5

Text only.

Flexible feed organisation: 3

No folder support. No options to sort feeds.

Everyday use: 1

Poor presentation and too few features. Try something else.

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There’s no doubt that RSS fiends are well catered for in the App Store. There are plenty of feed readers, and it’s clear that the price doesn’t always correlate to the quality of the app.

Here are Omio’s winners:

Best RSS app overall: Pro RSS

Best RSS app for Google Reader fans: Byline

One-to-Watch: Reader – ATOM/RSS Feed Reader

Omio Round Up: The Best Touch Screen Phones!

With the industry moving from megapixels to tactile touch screens as the mobile phone ‘must-have’, we’ve decided to compile a list of the five best handsets for getting into the world of button free telephony.

This list covers everything from entry level to the slickest finger-swiping phones, with something there for everyone to step their mobile game up to the next level!

LG Arena KM900

The LG Arena KM900 manages to use the combination of good looks and a great user interface to make for a great first touch screen handset. Much has been made of the new interface that LG has dubbed ‘S-Class,’ and definitely brings a very novel way to navigate the handset.

A 3-dimensional cube revolves to provide access to four different screens – contacts, widgets, shortcuts and a customizable home page. A single swipe takes users from one ‘side’ to the next, giving a quick and visually arresting way to manoeuvre around the device.

Whilst gimmicky at first, the interface soon proves indispensable but LG does also caters for newcomers by offering a simpler menu for those put off by the futuristic styling of S-Class.

Specifications are strong throughout, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with digital zoom, GPS and 8GB of internal memory rounding out a feature set driven by the 3” TFT touchscreen.

View pay monthly and prepay LG Arena deals on Omio.

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Samsung Tocco Lite

The Samsung Tocco Lite continues the immensely successful Tocco range with a cheap and cheerful handset that brings touch screen joy, without the price tag.

The Tocco Lite might ‘only’ be a 2G handset, but don’t let that put you off.

The 3” display offers the same TouchWiz user interface spotted on higher end devices, and with a thin frame as well as a 3.15 megapixel camera with face and smile detection, the Tocco Lite punches above its weight in terms of both looks and specs.

The Tocco Lite has everything that you need from a next generation mobile including music and movie playback for most formats, a document viewer, stereo FM radio and downloadable games.

Cute touches like the gesture lock which allows you to open applications while unlocking your device just by drawing a letter on the screen and handy widgets more than make up for concessions like the lack of 3G connectivity on the Samsung Tocco Lite, an impressive phone at a cheap price.

View pay monthly and prepay Samsung Tocco Lite S5230 deals on Omio.

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HTC Touch Diamond 2

Those looking for a more refined touch experience need look no further than the HTC Touch Diamond 2, an evolution in Windows Mobile-powered devices.

The iconic design of the original HTC Touch Diamond has been tempered slightly, resulting in a phone that is familiar and compact to hold, yet improves in many areas. The 3.2” VGA display is significantly larger, and combined with a touch sensitive zoom bar below the screen, the Diamond 2 makes web browsing a joy.

The zoom bar can also be used to navigate web pages, texts and photos, whilst the TouchFLO 3D interface makes navigating the handset simple yet effective. TouchFLO attempts to make the Windows mobile experience far more enjoyable, and the graphical flourishes as well as menu shortcuts make the Touch Diamond 2 easier to use than most devices lumbered with the ‘smartphone’ name.

A pricier and more technical handset than some in this list, the Touch Diamond 2 is a fully fledged multimedia device with 3G connectivity, built-in GPS and a 5 megapixel camera beefing up a rich feature set.

With the ability to upgrade to the new version of Windows Mobile when it comes out, the Touch Diamond 2 is a great bit of mobile kit that will remain future-proof for a long time to come.

View pay monthly and SIM-free HTC Touch Diamond 2 deals on Omio.

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Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the epitome of cool by committee. With a plectrum for a stylus, endorsement from today’s fashionable young things and an eagerly awaited touch design, the 5800 was bound to be a hit.

A music phone at heart, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ticks all the specs boxes with 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi support, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a hefty 3.2” high resolution touch display. Your music selection is handled by an 8GB memory card (included in the package), and a 3.5mm audio jack means that your favourite headphones can be plugged in with little trouble.

Despite the novel form factor and touch input, it is business as usual for anyone familiar with a Nokia device, the icons and menus will be entirely familiar for those used to any phone from the Finnish manufacturer in the last five years. Which is everyone.

Despite this, the funky combination of old and new has made the Nokia 5800 hugely popular as a first mobile phone without (as many) buttons.

View pay monthly, pre-pay and SIM-free Nokia 5800 XpressMusic deals on Omio.

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Apple iPhone 3GS

No touch screen mobile phone comparison would be complete without this game changing behemoth!

Getting the design so right first time has given Apple the ability to reiterate rather than revolutionize, and the iPhone 3GS is the second update to the groundbreaking formula.

Expanding on the iconic device with a 3 megapixel camera, video recording, voice controls and up to 32GB of storage, the Apple iPhone 3GS is able to do it all, faster.

The ‘S’ on this new model’s chest stands for ‘speed,’ and in terms of loading applications, web pages and general handset use, the iPhone 3GS trounces its forebears.

Little else has been changed, but the addition of an internal compass has enabled the device to provide full turn-by-turn GPS (with the help of a forthcoming application).

All this is moot – as iPhone owners know – the hook is the brilliant interface. The 3.5” touch screen, the multi-touch input methods, the ambient light sensor and menus created with touch in mind have all been around since the first iteration and are still the reason that people have flocked to the device in droves.

Ahead of the curve in so many ways (yet glaringly behind in others), the iPhone approaches mobiles from such a different perspective, and is largely why it is such a revelation to use. The browsing on Safari may lack Flash (for now), but is arguably the smoothest, fastest and most enjoyable web experience on a phone, bar none.

Use an iPhone and your current mobile -  touch screen or otherwise – will feel archaic in comparison. The only thing that will stop you tearing into your local O2 store and snapping one up will be the exorbitant price.

It is indeed one of the best phones around, if you can justify the price…

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Omio Round Up: The Best Bluetooth Headsets

Bluetooth headsets are great, no doubt. Allowing easy hands-free calls, wirelessly, whilst maintaining access to much of your phone’s functionality is brilliant, making a Bluetooth device a must-have accessory for those always on the move.

So why is it that they have had such a bad reputation?

Are they too difficult to set up, with pairing and handset compatibility issues resulting in many a wasted afternoon and acute frustration? Is it the quality of the early devices, making it sound as though people are speaking through a tin can telephone in a wind tunnel, gargling muesli?

Or is it just because people feel a bit like a twerp wearing them?

Whatever it is that has made them so uncool, many of the big headset makers have taken great pains to shift away from this negaitve press. With the highest spec materials, amazing call quality and sporting designs that would make an architect weep in wonder, these three headsets scream ‘business-chic’ as opposed to ‘boy band reject’.

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Aliph Jawbone Prime – £89.99

The first brand to position the Bluetooth headset as a luxury item and succeed, the Jawbone series of headsets offered exceptional call quality, a gorgeous design and a nice line in noise reduction.

The Prime continues this lineage effectively with an elegant and compact form factor, subtly placed buttons, wind-cancelling technology and a hefty price tag.

The Jawbone derives its name from the unique way that it picks up what you are saying, resting gingerly on the face and using sensors to detect movement in the jaw.
The Prime’s ‘NoiseAssassin’ technology uses this jaw vibration to sense when you are talking and filters out external noise automatically.

In addition, the volume of the caller on the other end is raised and lowered in
line with surrounding noise, picked up by a built-in external microphone.

Actually pairing the device is simple, holding down the ‘talk’ and volume buttons on the side for a couple of seconds is enough to alert any handset to the Jawbone Prime’s presence, and syncing is quick. An LED light gives a visual indication of what is going on.

In terms of comfort, the Prime comes with four different sizes of ear loops, as well as differently sized ear buds for the perfect fit. The loops aren’t required as the Prime nestles pretty well without them, but it adds an extra level of comfort. When on your head, the Prime barely reaches past the sideburns, resting at the top of the lower jaw and ready for vibro-action.

Weighing only 11 grams, the Prime causes little discomfort after extended usage, and the noise-cancelling feature is surprisingly effective, even walking around the bustling streets of Camden could not dampen the caller on the other end. Neither did we find ourselves shouting over traffic to be heard.

A stylish device, the Prime also comes in a vast array of colours in addition to its dimpled finish, matching any handset or mood. A nice touch, and a step towards courting the casual phone user as well as the businessman.

Battery life as well as voice quality was also tested on a marathon Playstation 3 session, a good place to get an idea of audio reception quality. The main thing it highlighted was just how bad the headsets other people use, with plenty of horrible echoing and background noise. Syncing with the PS3 was the usual Bluetooth cakewalk.

The Prime was done in around three and a half hours, which is not too bad considering the fact that it can be easily set to standby when not in use, and the constant activity when used as a gaming headset tends to drain a battery faster than normal. A quick recharge on the supplied USB charging cable (there is also a USB mains adapter) meant we were back in the game.

As an all-rounder, there is little to fault the Jawbone Prime. That bit of extra cash gets you a sleek, stylish Bluetooth device that is equally functional thanks to first-class NoiseAssassin technology, well worth it.

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Plantronics Voyager PRO – £79.99

Definitely a case of placing form before function, the Voyager Pro strays little from the lineage, acting as a successor to the immensely popular Voyager 510 still riding high in sales charts years after release.

With a overwhelming sense of ‘if it ain’t broke,’ the Voyager Pro looks much like a last-gen Bluetooth headset, but it is rammed to the gills with bleeding-edge AudioIQ noise-cancelling functionality, as well as being made of the highest grade materials.

Pairing is a simple exercise, a clearly marked power button is depressed, and the accompanying LED gives a little flash of awareness.  Input the code in your phone, and you’re ready to go! The Pro is not ashamed of requiring buttons to work, and as such places them in plain sight. The volume up/down keys are placed on the top of the ear loop, whilst the ‘talk’ button is squarely on the side of the earpiece.
Vocal cues are also offered, with the dulcet tones of a lady informing of muting status, as well as of low remaining battery life.

It might not be a voice you’ll hear too often, given that the battery life for the Voyager Pro is a whopping 6 hours talk time, with 5 days of standby.  Arguably it ought to last all week given the size of the ear loop, but running out of juice at an inopportune moment is a good thing to never have to worry about.

It is a tad difficult to get over the retro styling of the Voyager Pro, as the bulky design and extended microphone boom are not pretty. Admittedly, the microphone is there primarily to perform a function and placing it as close to the mouth as possible just makes sense.

Those who aren’t fans of having equipment constantly plastered to their face will find a boom a better audio/noise cancelling solution than the Prime’s reliance on jaw vibration.

For that matter, the noise reduction is exemplary. The boom actually has two microphones, the usual inside mic for speaking into, and an outside mic for picking up ambient noise levels. The audio algorithms between the two pieces of audio allow the Voyager Pro to separate the ambient chatter from your voice, with stunning results.

The rubber earpiece supplied is fairly comfortable, but the weight in comparison to the Prime, particularly behind the ear, takes some getting used to.  Coming in at 17 grams, the weight of the Pro is noticeable, yet well balanced on the ear.

Calls are crystal clear, and the difference between a device that has been manufactured for quality above all else is palpable, in terms of both use and feel. The specially chosen acoustic fabrics and steel microphone screens provide crisp, distortion-free output, so far as to get compliments on audio quality from other team members during a particularly heated battle in Call of Duty!

Whilst everything from washing machines to babies and annoying brothers can be heard in the background chatter of other players’ mics, the Pro managed to mix out practically all of the ambient noise, despite residing with others in a busy living room.

The ample choices of charging via USB, three and two-pin mains and even a car charger in the box was a nice perk, but a hectic afternoon of defending checkpoints and calling in artillery strikes resulted in the Pro losing only a third of battery life.

This is definitely the handset to go for if you are serious about having a sturdy, dependable Bluetooth headset with exemplary performance. The slightly unattractive styling, steep price and also the relatively unknown nature of Plantronics as a brand will make the Voyager Pro a tough sell to the average consumer.

However, the Voyager Pro is admittedly not an average Bluetooth headset for your average consumer, despite their protestations. The high-grade construction, peerless call quality and almost perfect noise reduction places the Voyager Pro firmly as a frontrunner in the premium Bluetooth headset market, making it a great choice for professionals constantly on the move.

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BlueAnt Q1 - £79.99

Whilst the Jawbone Prime and Voyager Pro are evolutions on long-established technology, the BlueAnt shakes up the Bluetooth market with brand new voice recognition technology.

With no prompting or learning, the Q1 enables almost complete phone functionality using just voice commands.

A definite selling point, the Q1 recognises your voice immediately without any training and has a myriad of commands that allow you to answer calls, check battery status, redial numbers and even discover some handy tricks for how to use it by saying “Teach Me”.

Even the entire pairing process is conducted via a series of voice commands piped into your ear, making the Q1 tremendously easy to set up. All you need to say is ‘Pair Me’, and you’re away!

The Q1’s styling as sleek and futuristic as the technology inside it, a curved and minimalist design of dark-grey plastic with a main ‘talk’ button emblazoned with the BlueAnt logo, and two smaller volume keys on the top of the device.

Placing it near your mouth is paramount for getting it to work, as the voice prompting is super sensitive to various commands. A blustery day or travelling in a car can make the Q1 a tad difficult to use, so the best chance of it working is by positioning the microphone portion in the right direction.

The noise cancelling is quite some ways off the pace set by the Voyager Pro, and is even a couple of steps behind the Prime in the call quality stakes. Calls are still very  much audible and the ‘voice isolation sensor’ which forgoes audio fidelity to increase audibility in busy locations (in Max mode) works well.

It is just a matter of being spoilt by the wind-cancelling tech in other devices that made the Q1 in arguably the most important department…

Nevertheless, the Q1 has the cool factor in spades, with call mute and call waiting support, automatic volume modulation according to the surroundings and a decent battery life of 4 hours talk time.

If any device existed to make Bluetooth headsets cool, then the Q1 is it.  The mean form factor, the cool voice interface, even the ‘edgy’ logo, everything about the Q1 sets it apart, in a good way.