Gift Ideas: Smartphones
Can you correct a word document, enhance an Excel spreadsheet and respond to email while in the drive-thru of your favorite fast-food restaurant? Well, these phones can!
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BlackBerry Curve 8520From $50.00
If you have been looking to upgrade to a true smartphone, you won’t go wrong with the BlackBerry Curve 8520. This great phone managed to squeeze under the $50.00 price barrier only because of carrier contract pricing, and we just couldn’t resist including it here.
The Curve 8520 is a powerhouse phone that offers you everything from excellent call quality to push email. In case you don’t know, “push” email is a proprietary feature of all BlackBerries, and it means email is pushed to your phone as it is sent. Other phones search for email on a timed basis, so this is definitely a feature that sets the Curve 8520 apart from other smartphones.
With the Curve 8520 you get a large, 2.46” display with 320 x 240 pixel resolution, a full Qwerty keypad with sculpted, contoured keys that make texting not just easy but enjoyable, along with a 2MP camera with 5x digital zoom, video camera, expandable memory, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, media player and much more.
One of the special features of the Curve 8520 is that the trackball has been replaced with a trackpad. Unlike the trackball, which was a moving ball inlaid into the device, the new trackpad senses your finger’s movements and eliminates any problems that may arrive from dust or dirt.
Since it’s a BlackBerry, you will have access to the BlackBerry App Store, which features tons of great applications for your phone, many of which are free. You can download apps right from your phone, and if you have a Paypal account, the purchasing process is a breeze.
RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, has come a long way in bridging “business” devices with more friendly consumer devices, and the Curve 8520 wears both hats very well.
If you have been eyeing BlackBerries and wanted to give one a try, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 will put a big smile on your face and leave plenty of room for you to grow into its many features and functions.
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Palm PreFrom $99.00
Interacting with the Palm Pre is just plain fun, due to its powerful and easy-to-use interface, which makes it a great choice for anyone who would love to get a touch screen phone minus the thick instruction handbook.
The Palm Pre has a unique, curved and compact shape, using most of the space for its 3.1 inch, 320 x 480 pixel display. For those who don’t study such things, that is a high-end display and a great screen size!
The screen slides up vertically and curves slightly inward, revealing a full QWERTY keyboard similar in layout and design to the Palm Centro. While a bit small, the keyboard layout is well-designed, allowing you to text and instant message with a flip of the screen. And yes, the Pre has email capability too.
The Palm Pre also features a 3MP camera with flash, GPS, 3.5 headphone jack (which allows the user a wide selection of headphones to pick from), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and comes pre-loaded with a variety of useful software.
There are plenty of apps available for the Palm Pre, and more are on the way. These apps will allow you to customize your Pre any way you want and keep you interested for some time to come.
Available for $99.00 with a 3-year contract, you are getting a fun phone that is genuinely easy to interact with and has the power to organize your day!
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HTC Droid ErisFrom $99.99
So you want to buy someone a state-of-the art touch screen cell phone with power, good looks and a brand name you can trust? Got it. May we suggest the HTC Droid Eris.
The HTC Eris is a full-court press into the latest in available and innovative cell phone design and interface technology. For example, the Eris offers a special “Scenes” feature, which allows users to create multiple home screens. You can create a soothing background for your personal life and have all the social widgets you want on that screen, and create another background and a set of business widgets for that home screen, etc.In addition to being highly customizable, The HTC has a touch interface that is both intuitive and responsive, the two most important attributes one could want. With little effort you can glide effortlessly from current weather conditions to email, and with another touch you can create a text message or surf the internet on a high resolution screen. Oh, and the screen I refer to is a whopping 3.2 inch, 320 x 480 pixel display masterpiece.
As for what the HTC Eris can do, the better question is what it can’t do. This phone really delivers. From texting to email to web-surfing to social applications, the Eris makes interacting a pleasure, not a chore.
The HTC Eris also comes with a powerful 5.0MP camera with Auto Focus, speakerphone with good sound quality, expandable memory and a bevy of preloaded apps to get you started.
The HTC Eris ships with the phone, 8GB SD Card, standard battery, A/C charger, USB cable, and quick start guide. Starting at $99.99 with contract, this is one phone you will want to take a serious look at.
Put an Eris under someone’s tree and you’ll get a big smile.
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BlackBerry TourFrom $149.99
If your shopping for a special smartphone for that special someone, the BlackBerry Tour (aka Niagra), is a great choice.
The Tour boasts a dream-come-true 480 x 360 pixel display on its 2.4 inch screen, providing super-crisp images and true color rendition. The build materials used in the Tour are first class, and the design is thoughtful and keeps the end-user in mind.
The BlackBerry Tour brings the best of all recent BlackBerries together to produce a powerful phone that can do just about everything. In fact, the 256MHz processor in the Tour is the same processor that was in many of the home computers in 2006! Crazy!!
With the Tour you can text, send multi-media messages, record video, receive email, browse the web as it was meant to be seen, and much more. A central media center puts you one click away from all your pictures, videos and music.
Of course you also receive GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 3.5mm stereo input, expandable memory via microSD and a starter pack of applications that ensures you’ll be having fun and being more productive in no time.
Add the BlackBerry App Store and you have instant access to a wide selection of apps, many of which are free.
If you’ve been curious about BlackBerries but thought they were all business and boring, you may want to take a fresh look at what RIM has been up to with their flagship phone, The BlackBerry Tour.
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BlackBerry Storm 2From $179.99
Rounding out our picks for our top-tier phone selections for this year is the BlackBerry Storm 2. The Storm 2 has made tremendous advancements over its predecessor, which was RIM’s first foray into the touch-screen arena.
The Storm 2 has four large touch sensors where the original Storm had one, small sensor. And that’s just the beginning of the many improvements RIM made in designing this second generation Storm. The “Storm overhaul” was a direct result of user feedback and the end result is a powerful and attractive BlackBerry that offers an enormous screen, an excellent touch interface and the ability to render web pages in true form.
Featuring a 3.25 inch, 480 x 360 display, the Storm 2 renders everything from web pages to small icons with crisp accuracy. The Storm 2 has a 3.2MP camera with flash, auto focus, image stabilization and 2X digital zoom. You also get GPS, Wi-Fi, expandable memory, media player, and a host of preloaded apps to get the party started. The Storm 2, like the iPhone, features an accelerometer which allows you to view in either portrait or landscape mode. This makes surfing the internet truly enjoyable, as both text and graphics are easy to see and are rendered almost exactly the way they are on your home computer.
While the Storm 2 is a genuine powerhouse, it is also an entertainment center and intimidating business tool. Adding the BlackBerry App Store will provide you with even more functionality.
If you are shopping for a BlackBerry Fan, the Storm 2 blends all the benefits of the powerful BlackBerry operating system with a touch interface to create a device that can play hard whether your at work, socializing, searching the internet or simply want to make a quality call.
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Apple iPhone 3GSFrom $199.00
The iPhone 3GS has become a true icon among cell phones. So much has been written about this amazing device. It started the touch-screen revolution and now, years later, remains the phone by which all other touch screens are measured.
All the buzz about the iPhone 3GS is because Apple got it right, and continues to get it right with a fun, powerful phone that puts incredible power in the user’s fingertips. Searching the web on the iPhone 3GS is a wonderful experience. Zoom in to a section of text with barely a swipe of the finger, zoom out in the same way.
The iPhone 3GS display measures 3.5 inches and features a 320 x 480 pixel resolution. The accelerometer allows you to change your view from portrait to landscape by simply turning the phone 180 degrees. Also, because the iPhone 3GS renders web pages so well, the size of the screen only enhances the overall experience.
Add the largest app store in the world and you have a sure winner for a gift for anyone wanting to see what it’s like to have a phone that goes so far beyond just making good calls.
The secret to the iPhone 3GS is that the operating system and the user interface were build side by side, with each other in mind, every step of the way. That’s what gives it that “finished” feeling, the sense that everything “just works the way it’s supposed to.”
If you are looking for an extra special gift for someone this holiday season, take a look at the iPhone 3GS.
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HTC Touch Pro 2From $199.99
The HTC Touch Pro 2 is a gift that will definitely keep on giving. Boasting a display that is physically larger and with deeper resolution than even the iPhone, the HTC Touch Pro 2 is on patrol to take out its competition.
Casual shoppers may find it interesting to know that HTC had been building phones for many manufacturers for many years when one day, they decided to slap their own label on their own devices. HTC has been equated with quality every since.
So why buy a Touch Pro 2? For starters, it’s a one-stop solution for folks who want to solve their entertainment, social and business needs in one step. This phone offers just that. You can play music, send/receive email, text, send multi-media messages, participate on social forums such as FaceBook and Twitter, create and edit documents, take great pictures, record video, well, you get the idea.
But if you’re reading this you are a smart shopper and want some specifics. So here ya go:
3.2MP camera with auto focus, digital zoom and an additional camera for video calls!
Windows Media Player – able to play embedded media within a web page easily and with just a click.
Opera Browser: Considered by many to be the very best mobile browser available.
Stereo Bluetooth, expandable memory and a user interface that is intuitive and easy to learn.
The HTC Touch Pro 2 is a top-of-the-line phone than can compete with the best of them. And in addition to a fine selection of pre-loaded apps, you have an app store where you’ll find lots of cool applications to keep you interested and intrigued at least until the next holiday season.
We picked the HTC Touch Pro 2 because if offers users the best of all worlds, wrapped up in a modern design and minimal learning curve.
