AT&T’s Captivate GPS Problems

After experiencing the GPS on AT&T’s Captivate, we have been unhappy with the poor system on a supposedly high-tech phone. Samsung Galaxy S-branded phones have various reports of poor GPS systems. I have personally experienced the frustration caused by the Captivate. A major advantage to these smart phones is the GPS ability. If you don’t have a GSP already, your phone is a great place to get one. You know that you’ll always have it with you. The GPS on AT&T’s Captivate, however, is quite faulty.

After finding your destination, it provides you with a car-focused map and route instructions. Conveniently it can also check for traffic. The problem is its reliability. You’ll find yourself mid-drive, thinking you and your GPS know where you’re going, then all of a sudden you hear “re-routing.” This notice is expected if you make a wrong turn or stop somewhere off the assigned route, but if you’re still driving on the same road that the GPS told you to just a moment ago, it’s not a good thing to hear. Now you’re left confused and flustered. Are you going the right way? Should you pull over and wait for a new route? Am I going to be late? These are stresses that you don’t want, and they seem to come with the Captivate’s GPS.

Now apparently, Samsung has created an app called GPS Restore, which is to fix the problems by setting the GPS back it its original state. We haven’t heard much about it yet, but hopefully it works. We’re sure other unsatisfied customers will be interested in giving it a try. We think this Restore app is way too late. The phone has been having problems for months, and many users have already switched to a new device. Sorry Samsung.


This post has been provided by Nicolas D'Alleva. Nicolas is the owner of Specialty Answering Service, an answering service company for small and large businesses. Specialty provides advanced call center services as well as basic answering service support.

Read More

10 Ways You Can Extend the Life of Your Smart Phone Battery

The Smartphone is more advanced than the regular phone and provides the user with more features such as the ability to compute and connect in more ways than the regular cell phone allows. They are more like handheld computers in the form of a mobile phone. You are allowed to run many applications on platforms that could only be run on computers in the past. Some of these include Java as these phones run on an operating system just like your computer. In recent time's application developers have being able to create a number of in demand applications for these phones. You can differentiate smart phones by their operating systems.

If you have one of these phones and use them to their utmost capacity you already know that a long battery life is very important. You will find too that newer phones don't keep their charge as well as the older ones with fewer features. But don't be disheartened there are a couple things you can do to ensure you battery life is extended to its fullest capacity. Here are the tips below;

1. Lowering the brightness of the phone screen.

2. Turn off vibrate when it is not necessary. So if you are not in a meeting or in a building which requires your phone to be off or on vibrate, don't leave vibrate on. This eats up more of your mobile phone battery life than just a ringtone.

3. Only turn on your GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you are using them.

4. Don't use a slideshow for your screensaver. Choose one picture out of them all, even though that may be hard to do because those changing pictures use up battery power.

5. Turn off email alerts. These use battery power especially when you get a lot of email.

6. Adjust the volume for different surroundings. This helps to save power if you are in an environment where your ringer doesn't need to be too loud.

7. Use ringtones that come with the phone or that are similar in size to those on the phone. Many of the tones and songs we download are larger and longer so more battery power is used up when these tones are used.

8. Turn off the backlight during the day and set it to the minimal time setting to automatically turn off when you stop using the keys.

9. Forward calls to your house phone when at home and turn off your mobile phone. This is simple and easy and can easily be reversed and there is usually no or a minimal charge.

10. Keep your phone in a cool place. When the phone is exposed to heat, the battery heats up and when this happens it damages the battery thus leading to less battery life.

These tips are for extending your battery life but if you tend to use your phone pretty much 24/7's you may want to look into getting an additional battery. Batteries don't last forever and over time they will lose their efficiency and you will have to get a new one to replace it. If after following these tips you still don't see an extension in your battery life, then you may need to get a new battery.

Read More

Verizon Jury Rigs Mobile Internet Service for iPad

Since it was released this past April, iPad Wi-Fi + 3G users have had the option of subscribing to a monthly data plan from AT&T to have internet access anywhere they can get a 3G signal. Not to be outdone, Verizon has now begun to offer their MiFi Mobile Hotspot bundled with the Wifi-only model of iPad. This is a clever response to the contract Apple has with AT&T for providing service to the device, which is incompatible with Verizon’s CDMA network on its own. Verizon’s MiFi Hotspot is a small, battery-powered device that contains both a 3G modem and a WiFi transmitter. It is programmed to automatically connect to Verizon’s wireless data network and relay that connection in WiFi format, supporting up to five WiFi-enabled devices simultaneously.

Interestingly enough, Verizon is offering its iPad/MiFi Mobile Hotspot bundle at the same price as the 3G iPad sold online and in retail stores by Apple and AT&T Wireless. Verizon, like AT&T, offers wireless service on a month-to-month basis. Monthly plans differ, however, as plans for AT&T start at $14.95 for 250MB and Verizon’s plans start at $20 per month for 1GB. AT&T only has one other monthly plan, $25 for 2GB, but Verizon offers a 3GB plan for $35 and a 5GB plan for $50. Verizon also offers a 10GB package for $80 a month, which might seem like a ridiculously excessive amount of data for an iPad until you consider that the MiFi Hotspot’s WiFi can be used by full size laptops and other devices too.

So who this iPad/MiFi offering aimed at? Well, to a large degree, Verizon is targeting its existing customers – especially those who are fans of Apple products. Many Verizon Wireless users have been anxiously waiting for a Verizon model of the iPhone, which, at the time of writing, still does not have a release date. To some degree, Verizon has also been pointing out that, unlike the integrated 3G service of AT&T’s iPad, their MiFi Mobile Hotspot isn’t just good for getting their iPad online. This is a common complaint among many would-be 3G iPad users who realize “I’m locked into paying a monthly data fee for my iPhone already, why should I hand over more of my money to get online with a device that’s really just a super-sized iPhone?”

This post has been provided by Nicolas D'Alleva. Nicolas is the owner of Specialty Answering Service, a nationwide phone answering service that caters to large and small businesses. Specialty also provides virtual answering service support for businesses with no central office location.

Read More

Will Moto Call Honeycomb Tablet XOOM?

The Motorola tablet could provide the name XOOM, it's happen that this organization just lately authorized the XOOM trademark. Though the name is not yet been authenticated by the manufacturer, the actual fact the company trademark are already submitted for use in the us, canada, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan combined with European factors in direction of an important worldwide launch from a usually hinted CES set up.

The Motorola tablet first made itself known when it appeared in the hands of Google’s Andy Rubin, who used it at the D: Dive into Mobile event earlier this month to show off the upcoming tablet-orientated Android software. Very little several may know about the XOOM at present, despite its pretty class positive aspects as well it typically is putting on a Tegra a number of name.

Motorola teased the world with a tongue-in-cheek ‘history of tablets’ video earlier this week, which suggested the crooks to be coaching the display screen adorn in the system at January's CES event in Las Vegas. If it does turned out to be the initial Android 3.0 tablet, the XOOM could have a great deal to perform, by it retaining congratulated to “skip a generation” it indicates it can easily successfully be considered a substantial ipad competitors.

Moto has offered us with a great deal of reasons behind all see to become on these concerns four few days time period possibly even time, let’s hope they offer goods!

Read More

Top 5 Christmas Gifts For The Techies

It’s quite a difficult task to find perfect gifts for your beloved ones. Yet for many of us it has become like a ritual to make a wish list and surprise our near and dear ones with the best gifts on Christmas every year.

With Christmas around the corner, let’s find out some unique Christmas gifts ideas for the tech savvy people of this generation. Here I recommend a list of best selling devices and gizmos in the UK. It'll help you to bring smile on their faces.

Few Best Selling Gadgets of 2010

The gadget retailers who mostly sell mobile phones and iPhone as Christmas gifts are also selling iPad, digital camera, e-book readers, and MP3 players etc. on demand as Christmas gifts this year.

• Apple iPad

Let’s begin with one of the greatest inventions of the decade, the Apple iPad. This popular device from the House of Cupertino features LED-backlit touchscreen with 9.7 inch display for web browsing and watching video. It also offers the iBooks app with e-Reader functionality and thousands of games and practical applications. Available on Orange, 3 and T-Mobile, the price of iPad starts from £27 per month with a one-off charge of £199. A perfect gift for people for whom, luxuries make the best present.

• Amazon Kindle

The e-Book reader from Amazon comes with e-ink screen technology for which the text on the screen looks exactly like the text on real paper which can be read even in the bright day light.

With a capacity to store up to 3,500 books, the e-Book reader has a built in Kindle e-book store. Some other features include internet browsing, free web browsing from overseas, read PDF files and a long battery back up. Students can use it as electronic textbooks as well as a perfect gift for book worms.

• HTC Wildfire

An ideal gift for a person who loves to socialise and for whom a phone means a lot more than just calling and texting. This Android based touchscreen smartphone offers a 5-megapixel camera, Facebook integration, free turn-by-turn GPS navigation and access to more than 100000 apps from Android store. Available SIM-free at £160 on Vodafone and £190 on 3UK, the phone with HTC Sense user interface is a fun to use.

• Apple iPod Touch

This personal music player with a capacity to store 1,750 songs is high on demand this year and therefore should be recommended as a perfect choice for the music lovers. It is basically an iPhone without a phone that features several useful functionalities like WiFi connectivity for web browsing, sending e-mail and downloading the complete range of applications from Apple’s “app store”. Its latest version includes features like FaceTime video calling and Apple’s Retina display.

• A.R Drone R/C helicopter

The A.R Drone R/C helicopter will make an exciting Christmas gift this year. Much better than those underpowered mini radio control choppers, this gadget can be fully controlled with your iPhone. It has a camera mode to view what the pilot would see and also offers some augmented reality games.

Read More

Good Reasons To Sell Mobile PhonesPhones

Mobile phones, needless to say are the most important devices used by almost everyone in the world. The prices of mobiles are so cheap these days that even an ordinary man can afford latest model hi-tech mobile phones. People often change their handsets following the new requirement and technology forgetting all about their old mobiles. There is a huge problem occurs with these old mobile phones that are dropped and then ended up in landfills. The most common health problems that may be due to the metals and other categories of damaging materials from discarded mobile phones are neurological. However, in some cases, it may also lead to reproductive and liver problems. Avoiding such problems, Mobile phone recycling is a new concept in the UK that is gaining popularity for selling mobile phones for cash.

The main reason why the governing bodies suggest recycling is we can help environment saving ourself from dangerous substances simultaneously making some good cash. So instead of throwing your old mobile phones into the trash, why not think of doing little help to our environment. There are many leading recycling companies in UK that pays good cash for your old and unused mobile phones. So, if you plan to sell mobile phones then go online to find the best recycling companies. It is advisable to go through some mobile comparison portals where you can compare and find the best deal for your handset.

Currently, only an estimate of over 10% of mobile phones are given for recycled and in the future we can only hope that this statistic rises. As concerned human beings, lets join our hands to give the quality of human life for the future generations and put an end to the destructive nature of mobile phones. So, it is the perfect time to get out all old and unused mobile phones that are kept in drawers and cupboards and sell them to a good recycling company.

Read More