27 July 2009

The 9th SONA

July 27, 2009 is the day where many of the speculations are answered and many of the accusations ended. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s last state of the nation address took at the Batasan Complex at around 4PM in the afternoon. All ears and eyes were glued on their television sets and radios. Every Filipino wants to hear her talk about the current standings and are hopeful that she will finally reveal the truth of our country’s condition. Before we talk about the 9th SONA of President Arroyo, almost all of her critics are worried that she might reveal in her speech—her plans for pursuing the constitutional assembly, as we all know from our political studies subject, constitutional assembly will only happen in the House of Representatives where all of the country’s congressmen convene. Without the participation of the Senate, they can vote if they are in favor of the constitutional assembly. Since we all know that majority of the congressmen are on the side of the administration, it is not impossible to gather the three-fourth votes of the populace.


Constitutional assembly became an issue because critics of the president are afraid that she might over use her power to change the constitution so she can extend her term which will nearly be a decade. Well, when the president finally had her speech this afternoon, it is clear that she will step down from her presidency until 2010, that she has no plans on extending her term, that she will finally let her enemies sleep in peace. The 9th SONA is likely not that astounding because for me, some of it was a bit misleading and untruthful. She said that our economy is strong but why is our country’s debt shoot up from 2 trillion in 2001 to approximately over 4.8 trillion in 2009? I mean, an average person can actually get my point straight; we can distinguish easily that if our country’s economy is really that strong, the government should not only be paying for the interest but for the monthly installment of the debt itself. Recent social weather station surveys revealed that there is actually an increase of unemployment and underemployment rate in the Philippines knowing that fresh graduates are in a tight competition in vying for a decent job.

Through all of the president’s struggles to neutralize her reputation and maintain her office, she is still able to survive. Although, I’m not really a big fan of her, I can really consider her a “small but terrible” woman. She faced a lot of impeachment cases, several mutinies in the military, and countless of rallies along the highway, but she’s still there, as if nothing happened, still “serving” for the Filipino people. The 9th SONA really did end a lot of controversies, and I hope that by tomorrow, issues that keep on bastardizing the headlines in the newspapers, radios, and television would come to an end. She may not have done great, but I believe that she’s done something.

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10 July 2009

Nokia Classic

If you want a classic phone which only gives the basic mobile functionalities but is also very trendy, Nokia Classic introduced two phones that might draw your attention.


If you want a stylish and slim phone with basic mobile features, then the Nokia 2630 is for you. Features such as built-in VGA camera and video recorder, FM radio with loudspeaker and a slim 9.9mm body makes the Nokia 2630 a perfect mobile phone for sharing.


If you want a phone that is compact and full of features, Nokia 6120 classic is a good choice. Aside form its stylish design; it also had a 2 mega pixel camera, HSDPA connectivity and MP4 video/camcorder.

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Nokia Style

Nokia did say that style is a form of self-expression, an art that reflects one’s personality and character. For people who likes fashionable phones but still does not compromise its functionalities, I found a phone that best suits your taste. I am talking about Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 6500 classic.


Nokia 8800 Arte is a slick slide up phone which adds up elegance when used. Features include stainless steel cover, screen protected by scratch-resistant glass window, integrated SVGA camera, music player, etc.





Subtle yet gorgeously-endowed, the Nokia 6500 classic is pure pleasure to behold. Flaunting trendy attributes such as elegant extruded aluminum covers, sapphire crystal display and a generous 1GB of storage.

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Nokia XpressMusic

After MP3 players, iPod, and other music gadgets swarm the market, Nokia introduced its new line of gadgets. They call it Nokia XpressMusic, this is a collection of music phones that are designed to have big storage for your playlists.


They first introduced Nokia 5310 XpressMusic as the ‘new music player’. This phone had a memory of up to 4GB, that’s approximately 3,000 songs plus its dedicated music keys, superb sound quality and innovative audio chip.





The newest addition to the XpressMusic products is the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It is considered as the portable entertainment device by Nokia. Features include a 3.2 mega pixel camera, touchscreen input, a 128MB SDRAM, etc.

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Nokia Series Phones: ESeries

This time I will talk about the partners of businessmen—their business tools. These tools will help them with their busy activities. Nokia ESeries promises to take your business wherever you go since it introduced new features which are not found on other phones.


Nokia ESeries

The Nokia E51 is a stylish and business phone. With its HSDPA, 3G and WLAN connectivity, you can check your email all the time. It also has a web browser to check for latest news about anything you ought to know.









This phone actually had big dimensions so as not to compromise its features. Features like high-speed mobile broadband via HSDPA, 3G and WLAN, multiple email support, built-in office applications and GPS, this made Nokia E90 Communicator a perfect business tool.

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Nokia Series Phones: NSeries

Nokia has been introducing new phones for the past couple of years. Mostly each of their items is correlated with the lifestyle of their customers. I found a catalog of new models of their phone. I will discuss whether it’s appropriate for you or not.


Nokia NSeries

NSeries is actually the newest innovation on Nokia today. Before the Nokia N97, they introduced its first ever phone that has a 5 mega pixel camera—the Nokia N95. With this phone you can take pictures with decent resolutions. You can also surf the web with its HSDPA connectivity, and save thousands of songs with 8GB of storage. This phone is good for people who travel a lot since it’s a camera/GPS navigator/phone in one.




Another NSeries phone is the Nokia N77, it also has the basic functionalities of a phone but this devise can actually let you watch real live TV broadcasts.










Nokia N81, on the other hand, is for the gamers. This phone is especially designed for gaming. The gaming keys were modified especially for this phone.

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09 July 2009

Japanese Phones

When a classmate in high school suggested a topic for this blog. I did not hesitate to accept the offer since I love to talk about Japan! You might think that this is another off topic but read on. Since this blog is entitled as 'Phone Society', that means, I will not only talk about phones but also on how it is used. Japanese had a different way of utilizing a phone.


In the Philippines, when we purchase a phone, we also subscribe to prepaid or postpaid plans. But there in Japan, you can choose whether you want to rent or purchase a new one. NTT Docomo, au by KDDI, and Softbank are the top 3 most popular mobile companies who render services to its more or less 95 million subscribers.

If you had a plan on going to Japan, your phone might be useless because of technological differences. GSM phones will not work there, that's why renting a phone is very popular.

In order to call outside Japan, your phone must be compatible with Japanese' networks, such as 3G phones. You can also rent a SIM card which is also compatible to their networks. Due to network differences, Japan phones might not work overseas except for 3G phones.

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Recharge your phone with...Soundwaves?

I know that this is a little off topic but I was just amazed to find something interesting! Actually, I was intrigued by this topic a week ago but didn't get the chance to write about it because I was not into blogging that time. Anyway, we all knew that people are figuring out new ways to make our lives modern by the help of technology.
Example of it are the alternative ways on charging your phone's battery. We can generate electricity from the sun, wind, water, steam, but I never thought about sound waves.

Sound waves can be found anywhere. These waves comes from our voices, noisy traffic, loud music, etc. Nokia is developing an unnamed phone which can actually grasp soundwaves, convert it to electricity which will then recharge your phone. If this technology would succeed, it is very possible to innovate this technology to other gadgets such as laptops, PDAs, and other wireless gizmos.

Though, Nokia revealed that the technology will only charge a small amount of energy, that is, enough for a totally dead battery to "standy" for hours. I think this is very good for emergency purposes. Especially if you're waiting for the reply of your loved one and your phone died. You just have to shout out loud enough to revive your phone's battery. hehe.

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08 July 2009

A new era of camera phones

Every mobile company must innovate a new feature on each of their items to draw attention to their customers. As I remembered, VGA cameras were introduced about 8 years ago. After that, here comes the 1.3 mega pixel, then a phone with a radio transmitter, a 3.0 mega pixel camera, a phone that can surf the web using WIFI or 3G, a 5 mega pixel camera...and now what?...a 12.1 mega pixel touchscreen camera phone? YES! you read it right! a 12.1 MP camera phone.

Presenting, Sony Ericsson's newest phone--Sony Ericsson Satio. The 12.1 mega pixel camera is considered as its edge to other mobile competitors. Just imagine, a phone with a Nikon Digital SLR camera image resolutions? WOW!

This phone can also play your favorite music, videos, and other basic functionalities. Video calling is also possible since it has a secondary camera infront of the phone. But like any other phones, I realized an important disadvantage, since the phone had only an internal memory of about 128~256 megabytes. I'm pretty sure that taking pictures would also be limited because super high resolution images eats up a lot of memory (approx. 1-2MB per image).

Although you can upgrade the phone's memory of up to 16GB by using microSD memory cards. It is still not very wise if you keep on saving MP3 files, and high resolution videos.

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06 July 2009

Touchscreen Phones: Price List

Last time I talked about iPhone 3GS and Samsung Omnia because I knew that touchscreen phones became a hot issue this year. Aside from the phones I've mentioned, I was also very curious about other touchscreen phones. I want to know whether it had some edge over the phones I reviewed the last time. But, as of now, I will not be able to review it since I was planning to talk about something else.


This time, I will be talking about the different prices of each touchscreen phones. (Prices below is based on the July 6,2009 Foreign Exchange Rate)

HTC Touch Diamond
Manufacturer: High Tech Computer Corporation
Release Date(s):
August 24, 2009 (US)
April 15, 2009 (UK)
April 16, 2009 (Singapore)
Price: $367~$412 OR P17,680~P19,846



iPhone 3Gs
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Release Date:
June 19, 2009 (US and Europe)
July 31, 2009 (Philippines)
Price: $199(16GB) $299(32GB) OR P9,595(16GB) P14,414(32GB)
Price may vary in the Philippines since it will be distributed exclusively by Globe Telecommunications.


Nokia N97
Manufacturer: Nokia Corporation
Release Date:
June 9, 2009 (US)
Price: $766 OR P37,055





Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO
Manufacturer: Samsung Group
Release Date:
July/August 2009
Price: $694~$763 OR P33,564~P36,897







Sony Ericsson Satio
Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
Release Date:
September 28, 2009
Price: N/A







There are actually a huge number of touchscreen phones in the market today. I just researched for the most recent and well known phones for this blog.

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