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The Lumia 710 is often confused with the Lumia 800 which was Nokia’s flagship mobile, but the 710 is actually the newer model despite what it may sound like due to number order. At first touch the Lumia 710 does not feel like much, but it does not feel like a cheap model either, leaving it somewhat in the middle. Unfortunately. the plastic on the phone leads to it quickly getting fingerprints all over it, but the rubber on the back does allow you to get a great grip on the mobile while it is in use.

One problem with the Lumia 710 is the placement of the power button on the phone as it is set  flush along the bezel which makes it a bit hard to get to sometimes. The navigation keys are also a bit awkward as they sit underneath a plastic strip and it’s a bit uncomfortable to reach for while you are using the phone. However, at the end of the day the Lumia is meant to be a nonsense free phone for those who want a simple mobile that is reasonably priced so these small factors are not that vital.

Moving along to the specs, the Lumia 710 sports the ClearBack technology from Nokia that is supposed to make it easier to see the 3.7 inch WVGA display when out in the sun.  Its operating system is the new Mango, or Windows Phone 7, which is a bit of a tossup in terms of ease of use.  One nice advantage is the Windows Phone choice is that it’s easy to use for those who do not have a lot of experience with touch screen mobile smartphones, but it does not offers as much for users as Android or the Apple OS.

Features that do come included with Mango however include the ability to multi-task and to use Internet Explorer 9, which should make browsing a bit simpler for those who only use IE at home. Switching between the apps is pretty simple since you also get a back button such as you when you surf online, and the screen always keeps a list of all open apps up for you that is easily accessible.

For those with other Microsoft products, the Lumia 710 is also an excellent choice because it can be synched with WMP, Zune, Microsoft Office, and Xbox Live.

Finally, for those who want to stay up-to-date with their social networks the Hubs feature is a nice setup since it allows you to get to your Outlook, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Twitter, and LinkedIn all in one place.

This makes it easy to communicate with all of your friends without switching apps and even allows you to catalogueu your contacts from the different social networks as you want to.  There are also a few preloaded apps that come with the Lumia 710 such as Netflix, the Weather Channel, Slacker Radio, Nokia Drive, and T-Mobile TV.  Of course, to use any of these features you will need a data plan.

Intel is one of the companies responsible for the growth of the personal computer and because of the chips that it provides to go in the machines. For many years however the company has not been involved in the smart phone or tablet market and the company dominating processor production here has been ARM. Last week it was announced that Intel are about to start fighting back against and will be launching a mobile processor for a smart phone that is going to be operating Google’s operating system, Android.

The vice president of the architecture group at Intel is Stephen Smith who has said, “It is expected that we are going to be announcing the product in the first half of this year. These will be designed so that companies who produce smart phones can use to design systems based around them.”

Intel has so far been unable to break into the mobile processing market in the same way ARM has because its processors have generally consumed more power than the equivalent processes by their rival. The new processor that has been announced by Intel has currently got the name Medfield and the chip is a significant step forward in efficiency and power consumption for Intel chips.

Mr Smith continued, “The reason this chip is more power efficient is because it is our first offering on a single chip. In the past we have been spreading the processing power across several chips and this is a design that requires more power.” This brings the chip much closer to the designs that are seen on ARM processors.

The magazine Technology Review recently was able to see a phone that was operating with the new Intel chip. They commented that the device was very similar to the iPhone but it was notably lighter, probably because of its construction from plastic rather than metal and glass. The phone was running the Android operating system but not the latest version. The magazine commented that like the iPhone it runs smoothly and appeared to be comfortably powerful.

The Lumia 800 is the new Nokia phone running the Windows operating system and they’ve just announced that there will be a special edition of the phone to celebrate the release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

The phone, which is entirely black, was recently unveiled in London and there will only be 40 of the phones made. There is a bat symbol embossed onto it which is the same one used in the latest Batman movies.

The phone which the special edition is based on arrived in the UK last month and boasts very impressive features. It has a 1.4 GHz processor and half a gigabyte of RAM and the standard phone comes with 16 GB of on-board storage. It also comes with the latest version of the Windows phone operating system and a very impressive display.

It is not yet known which Nokia stores in London will be selling this special edition of the phone and there has been no announcement about the price. That said, with only 40 being made and this amount of publicity there is no question that it is going to be out of the price range of most people. Fortunately though, the regular phone has a reasonable pricetag and is currently being rated as one of the best smartphones on the market.

There are many Batman themed products coming onto the market at the moment as the anticipation of the new Batman movie, which is coming in July, rises. There is a new game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 which has recently been released and is being well reviewed by both critics and gamers.

The new operating system that has been released by Google is Ice Cream Sandwich,which is also known as Android 4.0. The first phone to be utilising this operating system is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and inside this phone is a great deal of state-of-the-art technology which really puts it at the top end of the market.

While Samsung’s new device is definitely very impressive, what most tech experts are going to be keen to see is how it operates on the new system by Google. Android has undergone its biggest change since it was first created and this is something that many experts are predicting to be a game changer in the mobile operating system industry.

The new operating system is fusing together two previous systems, the one designed for tablet computers and the one designed for mobile phones. The specifications that are going to be running the system are impressive and the phone is running a dual core processor and has NFC support as well as a five megapixel camera.

The phone is definitely not tiny, and it is slightly larger than the other offering from Samsung, the Galaxy S2. When compared with its rivals, you can tell you’re not using an iPhone but the difference is not that noticeable.

The front of the phone is incredibly simplistic and there are no visible buttons. All you can see is the screen, a small front facing camera and a brightness sensor. There is a light at the bottom of the device that this is not noticeable until it is activated which happens when you receive an e-mail. As for the side of the device, there is nothing remarkable here, just the standard buttons you might expect such as volume control and power button.

One of the things that will surprise you the most about the device is the lack of an option to use expandable memory. Remarkably, the device has no expansion slot. This seems like an incredibly foolish design decision when you consider that the device is being marketed as a piece of media equipment. Most people, when they first read about the device, might assume that it is a mistake in the literature, but astoundingly, the device comes with no SD slot.

The rest of the features on the phone somewhat make up this and the screen is incredible. The resolution on it means it is incredibly sharp and this really makes it great for watching video and browsing the Internet. Samsung have developed a reputation for making incredible screens and this latest one is definitely no exception.

The market position of the phone is clear, it is targeted to be a top end handset, along with the likes of the Nokia Lumia 800 and the latest iPhone. The pricetag therefore is suitably high and if you want to get your hands on one you’re going to have to shell out over £40 a month for a contract if you want to it for free, otherwise you will have to shell out over £500.

Two new BlackBerry devices have recently been unveiled by Research in Motion. Both of these smartphones will be running the new operating system by the company called BlackBerry 7. The first of the phones is the BlackBerry Bold 9790 which has a large touchscreen and a trackpad. The phone has been designed to be very easy to hold and is very thin. RIM has announced that the phone has a 1 GHz processor and has 8 GB of storage built in. For those who need more the amount of space can be upgraded to 32 GB with the use of a Micro SD card.

The second device is the BlackBerry Curve 9380. This is the first BlackBerry Curve to have a touchscreen and while it has less internal storage, at 512 MB it can also be expanded up to 32 GB with a Micro SD card.

The new operating system that is shipping with the devices is claimed by RIM to be able to browse the web nearly twice as fast as its previous operating system. The reason for this is both to do through improvements in software but also with the handsets. The devices have improved support for HTML 5 and have more advanced graphics processing.

RIM have commented, “These new blackberries are a great expansion to the current range and we are very pleased to announce them. BlackBerry offers a more refined way for people to communicate and we think customers are going to be very pleased with the improved speed of these new devices. The design of them has also been improved and the touchscreen displays are designed with athletics in mind.”

It is expected that the new mobile phone manufactured by Nokia, the Lumia 800, is going to be a great success. Nokia has a reputation for making great phones, but the software has often let them down as the Nokia operating system tends to be unpredictable. This new phone however utilises an operating system created by the undisputed champion of the operating system world, Microsoft.

While many people see this as very similar to a previous phone, the N9, this new phone operates entirely on the Windows Mobile 7 operating system and is sure to bring a whole new experience to users. If you use this latest smart phone you are sure to be impressed as it is a very fine piece of work.

The hardware of this new phone is a delight to touch. It is made out of plastic but it feels very much like a metal and it is scratch resistant and if it does scratch it is hardly noticeable. There is a vibrant 3.7 inch screen behind a piece of glass that curves to meet the edges of the casing. It is a millimetre or two thicker than the iPhone but when in the hand it feels just right.

If you were to think of a word to describe how this phone feels you could use ‘designed.’ Most phones on the market are what you might call engineered, but this phone, with its good looks and stylish feel as if it has been created by a designer rather than an engineer – who is simply focused on function.

The phone has a solid weight to it, but this is not a bad thing, in fact many designers of smart phones often try to make them as light as possible and this can leave them feeling cheap and rushed together. This new Nokia feels as if it is just the right weight.

The processing power inside the phone is not market leading, it has a 1 GHz processor and a single core. A recent comment before the phone’s release from Microsoft stated, “We have made so much effort in making sure the operating system runs perfectly on 1 GHz that adding more power would simply be unnecessary.”

They are probably right, as adding additional power would shorten the battery life significantly. In tests, several android phones, even with more powerful processors have been shown to stutter, but the Nokia never does.

Nokia has still left some of its software on the phone, despite Microsoft having alternatives on the device. There is no real advantage to using the Nokia software as it tends to be slightly behind the Microsoft versions. However, Nokia Drive, still comes with free navigation software which will be appreciated by many users.

Battery life on the phone is good thanks to a PenTile screen, which is a type of technology that saves battery power with the only cost being that sometimes the pixels on the screen appear little bit strange, but this is not very noticeable.

The phone is let down a little by its relatively small memory of only 16 GB and there is no room for expansion. The phone comes on sale next week in the UK and will retail for around £400 and it is sure to be a serious contender in the ever-growing smart phone market.

Vodafone’s One Net Express is the answer to any SME’s problems with their phone system. One Net Express helps to consolidate all your calls and helps your business become more efficient as well. When you sign up for One Net Express you can receive landlines to go with your mobile line and therefore you have the option of using a landline to promote you company instead of a mobile giving the impression of having an office and staff.

You will be able to maintain your mobile number or even your landline number and multiple area codes can be requested so that your business looks like a local company in the different areas you work in, therefore increasing the possibility of getting more business since many people like to work only with local businesses.

There are also multiple options that are available in the packages. You can have a transfer option where you can transfer the call to the person that is being sought even though they may be on a mobile phone many kilometers away.

There is also an option for automated answering where the system will answer and prompt the caller to the department they wish and then the corresponding phone will ring for the person that is handling that department.

There are hunt groups that can be established. A call may come in for you but you are unable to answer the phone the system will automatically transfer the call to the next phone number in the hunt group so if they are not busy they can answer the phone.

All calls will also go into one common voicemail regardless if they came into a landline or mobile line they all are funneled into just one voicemail box. One Net Express offers many options to the SME and will help maintain business and attract new business as well.

RIM’s contender in the booming tablet market has been eagerly awaited since it was previewed last September. When you get your hands on the Blackberry Playbook, you’ll believe that the best things in life really are worth waiting for. Its seven inch screen means it’s smaller than the iPad, but much lighter – 400 grams versus the iPad’s burly 680g. But smaller can also mean more, and BlackBerry PlayBook has been crammed with features. The screen’s 1024×600 resolution means it can play ravishing 1080p video and bring super-fine quality to text and graphics, while web pages burst into life on its WebKit browser. It runs Adobe Flash as well as embracing the future with support for Adobe’s new AIR environment and RIM’s own Blackberry WebWorks platform. This stunning versatility has been made possible by the Playbook’s new QNX operating system, which gives it creamy-smooth multitasking capabilities, made sleeker still by its fast and intuitive user interface. All this gorgeousness demands plenty of power, which is supplied by the Playbook’s dual-core 1GHz processor coupled with a whole gigabyte of RAM. That means multiple browser tabs and applications can just keep purring away effortlessly in the background.

The Playbook has connectivity by the bucketload. As well as being equipped with  WiFi and 3G, it allows Blackberry customers to use their existing service plan for full 3G access. A Blackberry smartphone can also pair with the Playbook via Bluetooth for full access to Email, calendar, documents and Blackberry Messenger. There’s a microUSB port, and an HDMI socket for HD video output. It’s ahead of the curve as an imaging device too. It doesn’t just play back 1080p video, it shoots it too, through its rear-mounted 5MP camera, while a front-facing 3MP cam handles video chat. In the pad computing war, the Blackberry Playbook may be the secret weapon. Hurry to buy your own PlayBook and other Expansys tablet PCs for fast delivery at killer prices.

Have you started utilising mobile advertising for your business yet? If you haven’t, then you need to seriously consider adding this to your company’s marketing strategy. Mobile advertising allows you to connect with your customers and future targets in a quick and efficient manner. It can generate considerable business for your company while saving money on your company advertising. All it takes is a database of customers who want to know what you have to sell and who are willing to accept mobile adverts from you.

Mobile marketing is considered a type of personal marketing in the industry. How? Personal marketing means that you are able to reach out and contact your customers using a method that is one-on-one. You send your message straight to their mobile phone. You do not use a large outdoor billboard that the customer may or may not see. You do not advertise on the television during shows that the customer may or may not watch. You send the message to the customer directly, with no middle marketing techniques used. It is a personal touch; the customer will read the message, and then it is solely up to them whether or not they act on it.

Many websites require the customer to click through numerous pages of information before they get to the page that they want. This makes a lot of potential customers leave the website and move on to a competitor that has a website which is much easier to navigate. iPhone advertising eliminates this problem. Customers get your message quickly and efficiently, allowing them to act on what you have to say quickly. This type of advertising really helps you get the quick results you are looking for.

Consumers want to receive their advertising from places they pick. They want to know about your products and not those of your competitors. By sending mobile advertising straight to their phone, they will get what you want them to get and nothing more. You need to understand, however, how to make mobile advertising work for you. You do not want to bombard your customer with so many adverts that they decide to simply change their mobile number to get away from you. Instead, you want to use your mobile advertising wisely.

Start by researching mobile applications and finding out how you can use them. Mobile apps will allow you to deliver the information you are trying to get to your customers through the Internet. They will be able to look at your advert using an Internet browser on their phone. Instead of sending out a plain text message, mobile apps allow you to send graphics, links and other features typically found in a webpage advert on a smaller, more personal medium. Do not forget to sell your application to your customers through mobile sites, other operators and ad placements. If your customers don’t know they are available, you won’t get the word to them using this format.

Do not limit your mobile advertising to a single application platform. Some businesses have already made the mistake of offering applications only for certain types of phones, such as the iPhone. Not everyone owns an iPhone, so you need to make sure that the mobile apps you develop can also work on other platforms. For example, a java platform application will work with BlackBerry mobile phones as well as other handset styles and manufacturers. By limiting yourself to only one type of phone for your app to work on, you will be cutting off customers who want to know about the products sold by your business.

Effectively using an application with your mobile marketing plan requires you to analyse who your main customers will be who are actually using mobile apps on their phones, and how to design the marketing to be appealing to that age group. Currently, the average age of mobile phone app users is 32 years-old, and just under half of these are women. You need to design your campaign in such a way that it engages your customer, provides them with some entertainment and is effective enough to make the customer read the entire advert before signing on to your website or stepping into your store to see what you are all about. It is an achievable mix that requires a little bit of research to develop. Remember, you want to sell your brand. You want to engrain it in the customer’s head so that every time your application launches on their phone with an update, they are interested in what you have to say.

To keep your customers using your application, make sure you add some new features every once in a while. This helps your customers keep an eye on what you are doing without getting bored because you did not give them something new to play with. This helps continuously build brand recognition. Additionally, make sure that your brand is visible in the adverts and on the application itself. You want to keep your customers coming back over and over again.

Finally, make sure you test your application frequently to ensure that it is working properly and meeting the needs of your customer. You may offer them a terrific application, but if their mobile is not optimised for the platform you are using, you could accidently drive the customer away and give your brand and product a bad reputation. How people perceive your brand is imperative to having good sales. Invite your customers to provide feedback on how they like the mobile application and if it is helping them stay on top of what you are doing. You can then use this information to not only tweak your brand name, but also your message delivery.

If you have not started using mobile advertising to reach your customers, then it is time to start. The personal service will be appreciated by those customers who want to know what you are doing and how you are improving your product. They will be the ones that will ultimately help your company grow.

HTC has thrown itself at Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 platform with gusto, releasing a number of impressive handsets at launch including the HTC HD7 and Mozart. The HTC 7 Pro is intended to focus more on the business market while still giving users access to this brand new mobile operating system that looks set to change the way we think about interacting with smartphones.

In keeping with its title the HTC 7 Pro will feature a full physical QWERTY keypad arranged in a landscape orientation and hidden by a slider mechanism. This will allow its 3.6 inch touchscreen display to be accessed for quick interaction whilst still giving users the option to pop out the full keypad when long messages need to be composed.

Aside from its keypad the HTC 7 Pro sticks closely to the other Windows Phone 7 handsets in terms of hardware, largely because of the minimum requirements imposed by Microsoft to ensure unity across the various manufacturers working on its platform. As such you get a 1GHz processor, a five megapixel digital camera complete with HD video capture, Wi-Fi connectivity and GPS for navigation. HTC has bundled 8GB of storage into the 7 Pro, which should be plenty for business users.

Windows Phone 7 is already making an impression thanks to its intuitive and above all fresh interface. Its customisable homescreen features Live Tiles which can be arranged, removed and added to the owner’s specifications and these will keep you informed when new mail arrives and when other events occur. Dedicated support for Xbox Live makes the HTC 7 Pro a solid gaming platform straight out of the box, complete with premium titles from mainstream studios for workers to enjoy on the commute.

Web browsing is provided via Internet Explorer and Facebook is heavily integrated into this smartphone like no other. You can add contacts from your list of Friends and stay in touch without having to open up multiple different applications to get the job done.

The HTC 7 Pro and Windows Phone 7 combine to create a package for people who want to enjoy the social aspects of mobile ownership but still get easy access to all of their emails and productivity apps for work. It has yet to be confirmed by any particular UK network provider but there should be some good HTC 7 Pro deals available on multiple carriers upon launch in order to reach the widest possible audience.