Mobile phone opinions pieces from the Recombu team

Opinion: Google TV is here – but does anybody care?

Opinion: What does the future hold for Symbian?

Debate: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Holo themes - too much control or not enough?

Debate: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Holo themes - too much control or not enough? 6 days ago | Posted in Opinions Opinion: What does the future hold for Symbian? 6 days ago | Posted in Opinions Opinion: Google TV is here – but does anybody care? last week | Posted in Opinions

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Creating the perfect postcard with Touchnote

3 days ago | POSTED IN Opinions

Postcards are great ways to share a little bit of your holiday/travels with your friends and family, and maybe make them a little jealous too. There are a plethora of postcards available when you reach your destination, including picturesque scenery, beautiful beaches, landmarks and the odd boob or sun-kissed bottom joke postcard. We were thinking the other day though, in a world filled with online social communications and rise of smartphones and tablets ... has the humble postcard seen its...

Snailmail

Debate: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Holo themes - too much control or not enough?

6 days ago | POSTED IN Opinions

Last week we locked horns over the pricing of Windows Phone devices and now we’re ruminating over the design direction Google is taking Android in with its Holo themes for Ice Cream Sandwich. Android's four point oh user interface is a futuristic amalgam of strokes and gradients against clean blacks and simple shapes. A handsome, simplistic application of skinny hair-lines and Roboto type is layed against a more dynamic, functional operating system than either Gingerbread or Honeycomb....

Ain’t no Holo-back grrl

Opinion: What does the future hold for Symbian?

6 days ago | POSTED IN Opinions

There’s a problem with Symbian, and it’s one I sympathise with. It’s old. Older than you think. Like me. Back in the early 1990s, Psion came up with a fully multitasking, graphical, extensible operating system that was app-rich, fully programmable and which ran on the Series 3 for a month on 2 ‘AA’ batteries. This was SIBO, later renamed EPOC/16 - and there was a 32-bit follow-up for the modern age, EPOC/32, launched in 1997 for Psion’s Series 5 palmtop....

Symbian in the future

Opinion: Google TV is here – but does anybody care?

last week | POSTED IN Opinions

Google wants to take over your TV. After an abortive first sortie, the Giant of Search was back with a second iteration of its interactive TV platform at this year’s International CES. But despite its ambitions, there remain enormous hurdles for Google to overcome before it can even begin to repeat the success it’s had with its mobile platform. Google’s vision is for a multi-brand army of connected screens all running an Android platform optimized for TV. For you, this means a...

Google TV time?

Debate: Are Windows Phone smartphones too expensive?

2 weeks ago | POSTED IN Opinions

Nokia recently introduced it's second Windows Phone handset: the Nokia Lumia 710. We loved the handset and scored it highly, but it did provoke a question in the office. Are Windows Phone handsets too expensive? Recombu's Hannah Bouckley and Thomas Newton have differing opinions. Hannah Bouckley - YesOver the last couple of weeks I've tried a couple of affordable Windows Phone handsets. The Nokia Lumia 710 - described at launch as ‘affordable’ and the ZTE Tania billed as...

Window Shopping

Opinion: Mobile Predictions for 2012

1 month ago | POSTED IN Opinions

The first week of 2012 over, which for many people involved early starts, rail fare hikes and less predictable galeforce winds, with the Olympic Games and the Mayan 2012 phenomenon still to contend with. But what will happen to the mobile industry in 2012? Here we’re looking into our crystal ball and letting our imagination get creative with our likely and not-so-likely predictions for 2012. 1: It’s all about the Quad2012 will be the year of the quad core phone. NVIDIA has already...

Maybe, maybe not

Opinion: iPhone 5 vs Android next-gen rumours

2 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

My quad-core’s better than yours. No it isn’t. Yes, it is! It’s already coming down to this. With rumours abound about the iPhone 5 and its suspected A6 quad-core processor, Android's upcoming devices are getting a fair bit of stick, with one website describing them as “impoverished relatives of the next-gen Apple smartphone”. In the minds of many an Apple advocate, the Android platform is suggested to be sorely lacking in the performance and usability stakes...

A6. Tegra 3. Fight.

Opinion: Taking on South America and giving up my smartphone

2 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

I've been a smartphone lover since I first was introduced to the iPhone 2G and have had the pleasure (well most of the time), of using a variety of devices including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia and most recently Windows Phone 7. To give you a better idea of who I am; I'm the one sat with my phone strapped to my face most of the time tweeting, checking-in or playing with my latest favourite app. However, this all changed about a month ago when I decided to go travelling around...

Downgrading?

Opinion: The smartphone needs to go back to basics

3 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

In the rush to make our smartphones faster, thinner, and lighter, I can’t help but feel that manufacturers are overlooking the finer details. Our phones have moved beyond their basic functions and have essentially become mini computers in our pockets. While it’s truly amazing to see how far things have progressed in such a small amount of time, it seems to be coming at the expense of basic form and function. Let’s start with the most obvious: build and design. Phones of the...

Let's all go back to 2005.

Opinion: Why smartphone gaming is broken, and how it can be fixed

4 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

When people talk about smartphone gaming, they mean one of two things. Either they're talking about cutesy, time-passing puzzlers like Angry Birds or Cut the Rope - something quick and challenging and perfect for the bus. Fret not, casual-game developers; I'm not here for you. I'm after the "high-end" stuff, the spin-offs from the big name PC franchises or re-releases of the PlayStations and N64s of yore, showered with cash, spruced up and polished to a shine and ready for...

Gaming future

Opinion: Festival advice; leave your smartphone at home

5 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

As the festival season nears it second peak with Reading and Leeds this weekend and Bestival following shortly after, we’ve seen a few stories on ‘best festival apps’ and 'festival proof smartphones’ and the like. But if you ask me, my advice is; don’t take your expensive app-happy smartphone. Stick your SIM in a cheapy pay-as-you-go-er, or an older phone that you wouldn’t mind losing and use that. One enduring memory from the Download Festival in 2006...

Leave it at home

Opinion: The ten most overrated phone features

7 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

There’s an awful lot of phones around these days, with some dizzying specification sheets. I could recite paragraph after paragraph of initials, abbreviations and hyphenated technical terms. Some features may develop at some point into an essential feature, but currently, due to lack of interest or limited appeal, really aren’t really delivering what they promised. Sadly, there’s plenty of features on your shiny new toy that you may never use. 1. DLNA and HDMI connections: I...

*Yawns*

Opinion: Why Windows Phone 7 will succeed in the long run

8 months ago | POSTED IN Opinions

A little while ago my colleague Mat Smith had a few things to say about Windows Phone 7. I didn’t totally agree with everything he said (and judging by the comments, so did a few of you). I think that he made some good points, especially about app pricing and the stigma attached to Microsoft/Windows as a brand. But ultimately I disagree with him on the points that WP7 doesn’t matter and that it’s playing ‘catch up’ with Apple or Google. Right now, WP7 can’t...