iPhone 3G has gained the buzz that Apple was looking for. Every press release or online article praised its qualities, features and price. Regarding myself, I had been a big fan before the iPhone launched, but I must tell you I changed my opinion as I used it. The same negative opinions have appeared recently regarding the latest iPhone version, the 3G.

People complain about its slow data speeds, weak signal or lack of enterprise features. That doesn’t sound good for Apple’s business, but it seems the praises were left out. Most of the users showed disappointment in iPhone’s data connections. The blame cannot be put only on iPhone’s weakness, but also to carriers. For example the data speeds vary from network to network - T-mobile of Germany has the highest rates, while a carrier in Australia provides the lowest speeds.

Another issue pointed out by 3G iPhone users is the call dropping problem. It appears to be an intern problem, as the 2.02 firmware update has solved it. In addition, the users that didn’t experienced such a problem have encountered another - the weak signal inside buildings. That trouble was allegedly caused by a faulty chip set supplied by mobile chipmaker Infineon Technologie.

The bad experiences continue with outages in MobileMe service and iTunes incompatibility. In the same list users included the third party applications sold over AppStore that created glitches and dissatisfaction.

An overall opinion makes you think twice before purchasing an iPhone. From the most precious mobile of our time it has fallen in disgrace.

It’s not big news that big names in printing have launched wireless printer options, but the big thing is that Ricoh just rolled in the new HotSpot series. These are all laser printers and the company is screaming all over, that it’s the first to “print documents from any Wi-Fi enabled location or device”.

Not so easy we say. You actually need to go on and upload your files to associated websites or to send it (the file) to the printer’s own email address.

That sounds tough? Not really if you consider that you won’t need to install drivers or the fact that you can really print directly from your mobile phone (connected to your computer).

It could be better to read a printer buying guide before you decide to buy the new Ricoh Mobile HotSpot laser printer which should be available from $1,700 for the monochrome SP 4100N-KP, up.

We don’t know the exact price for the color SP C410DN-KP model but our assumptions say it should be really high and may not be worth it.

Just make sure you make the right choice.

Nokia has officially announced today its Nseries superstar - Nokia N96. The phone continues N95 tradition with high-end features and amazing multimedia capabilities. To give you a first impression, I will tell you it has 16GB internal memory, live TV with DVB-H technology and 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

The dual-slider could be name the most powerful mobile on the market. Nokia N96 works in the following networks: WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS). It sports a 2.8-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display and supports multiple video formats. Besides, Nokia N96 features integrated music player, radio and a TV tuner as I told you above. The 5 megapixel camera captures amazing photos at 2592 x 1944 pixels. The phone has a secondary camera for chat. Also it features a built-in GPS receiver, with support for assisted GPS (A-GPS), Nokia Maps application and voice guided car navigation.

The chapter connectivity is also well covered. The mobile has Wi-Fi 802.11 g/b with UPnP support, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with Micro USB type B interface, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP stereo audio and Enhanced Data Rates (EDR), 3.5mm stereo headset plug and TV-out support (PAL/NTSC). It also has an email client with support for SMTP, IMAP4, POP3, MMS, SMS.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvUvuCOhwVM[/youtube]

The retail price will be set up at 550 euros before taxes and subsidies. About availability I can say the phone will be ready in the third quarter of 2008. Guys I tell you, this could be the iPhone killer!

Nseries via Engadget

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed the testing for Samsung SCH-U940. The mobile phone will be probably released with Verizon Wireless.

As I have said above, Samsung U940 will be compatible with Verizon’s CDMA and EVDO network. It is an American version of the F700 model. The phone sports a 3.2″ touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard. It has a single key on the front panel, but the side-sliding unveils its keyboard.

Other features of this phone include a 2.0 megapixel camera, 150MB of internal memory, a microSD slot and Stereo Bluetooth. We cannot tell for sure the exact release date nor its price. But we should expect it somewhere in the first half of 2008.

via Electronista

… and I thought my mobile has a good battery. Two months in standby is almost unbelievable, but Philips has found the recipe. Its new Philips Xenium 9@9k supports 17 hours of continuous talking and an amazing 1440 hours standby time. Divide by 24 and you obtain 60 days. Speechless!

I’ve never been a fan of Philips mobiles, but this one seems interesting. Philips Xenium 9@9k is tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900)/GPRS phone. It sports a 65K color TFT display, VGA camera, microSD memory card slot and Bluetooth. No word on pricing or availability, but the cellphone can be a nice addition for those who are not impressed by fancy, shiny mobiles.

via Unwiredview

Mozilla’s VP of Engineerring, Mike Schroepfer, announced that with all these developments on mobile phones nowadays it’s time for Mozilla to go mobile with “no compromise” to security or other issues. Firefox is the world’s most popular open-source browser and with a market of 20 mobile devices to outnumber 1 computer I think they will do good.

First Mozilla needs to finish developing Firefox 3 before they release the mobile version that will be able to run Firefox extensions and allow people to build rich applications via XUL. Two new people have been accounted in the team: Christian Sejersen, head of browsers at Openwave (NSDQ: OPWV) and Brad Lassey which moved from France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) R&D.

To make sure it’s clear here’s what Mike Schroepfer said:

* Mozilla will add mobile devices to the first class/tier-1 platform set for Mozilla2. This means we will make core platform decisions with mobile devices as first-class citizens.

* We will ship a version of “Mobile Firefox” which can, among other things, run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.