Rodfather Mobile

French site Archos Lounge announced the upcoming Archos 606 PMP/MID which will include 3G.  It appears to be an upgrade to the WiFi enabled Archos 605.  No word on availability but I’ll assume France only at this time.

A few details:

• Slightly bigger screen than 605
• All black
• 30GB drive
• Support for Opera widgets

Could be a great alternative to the iPhone/iPod Touch, Nokia Internet Tablets, and MID’s if you favor media playback and/or recording as a main feature.

Via Gizmodo

You can now grab a Nokia N810 for $389.99 retail.

Nice call but I think it should be lower at around $300.

Wonder which forces are pushing Nokia to lower the price of the N810 at this time.

• The MID’s coming around the corner with the Gigabyte M528 appearing to be very competitive?
• iPhone/iPod Touch SDK released?
• WiMax enabled N830 coming?

Nokia has a lot to worry about in a few months.  Hope they can respond with something.

If you ever have the urge to add this blog to the homescreen on your iPhone/iPod Touch, you will now get my family crest instead of the nasty generated icon.

To get this done on your site..

From Jenn of Pocketables:

To make your own webclip icon:

1. Create a 57 x 57 image and save it as a PNG file.
2. Name the file “apple-touch-icon.png” (without the quotes).
3. Upload it to the main directory or root folder of your website.

The package arrived today.

The Novatel U727 EVDO Rev.A USB modem, 1 GB microSD card,  and the CradlePoint CTR350 EVDO Router.

Both the modem and router are fairly small.  The router is even more surprising since it’s just a bit wider than a deck of cards.

Modem

The U727 came preactivated with Sprint Broadband from evdoinfo.com.  I installed the Sprint Mobile Broadband dialer and drivers into my Samsung Q1 with the included CD.  It gave a message to update the software but I was able to connect right away.  I slide in the 1GB microSD card into the U727 and copied the software and drivers from the included CD on to it.  The CD came with Mac drivers as well so having the software stuck in the modem’s microSD card may be handy in case I need to connect with other computers.  You can use up to a 4GB card in the U727.

Although it’s around the size of a thumbdrive, it does stick out quite a bit from the Q1.  It comes with a rubber cradle and small USB extension cord that’s designed to attach the modem to an LCD screen.  Unfortunately, the Q1 has so much depth, the cradle won’t attach easily.  I imagine I’ll use velcro or just plug the modem into the router when I need to get connected with the Q1.

Battery drain isn’t too bad.  With WiFi and Bluetooth off, NHC was showing the Q1’s battery drain was around -12W to -14W.  I’m imagining an average 1W drain from the modem but can probably peak to 5W.

The GPS seemed to work when using it with Sprint’s dialer.  It comes with a Location and Search Services feature for searching nearby point of interests, like the nearest restaurant.  After submitting a search, the results are brought up on a Sprint web page with a Microsoft Virtual Earth map showing where you are and icons displaying the search results.

I couldn’t get iGuidance GPS navigation software to find the GPS receiver though.  I will try again later.  I’m assuming it should work since a GPS COM port is showing up in the device manager.

Router

There’s not much to this router.  On the face, there’s 4 LED indicators.  Power, WLAN, WAN, and USB.

On the left side, there’s a single USB port.

On the right side, there’s a reset button, ethernet jack, and power.  The ethernet jack is only used for WAN connections for connecting to a DSL modem or a hotel network jack as another means to a source connection.   It cannot be used to share the USB EVDO connection to, let’s say, a desktop with an ethernet jack.

The package contains a sheet of instructions on how to update the firmware and a CD with the actual firmware.  It was suppose to come shipped with the latest firmware but it wasn’t.  Mine was installed with 1.4 and when plugging  the U727 into the router, nothing happened.

After updating the firmware to 1.6 through the web admin interface, it recognized the modem right away and started working.

It’s really that simple.  Just plug the USB modem into the router and it connects right away.  The router even allows hot swapping.  I can insert or unplug the U727 without restarting the router.

It comes with the default setting of entering a password to get online.  So anyone can’t hop on your network from the get go.  When you first connect, you are redirected to the router’s interface, similar to connecting to hotel or T-Mobile’s WiFi network.   You can however change to using WEP or other forms of security instead of using the web password form.

There are many options in the admin screen.  It’s definitely a full featured router which can easily run your home wireless network.  One thing it doesn’t show is the signal strength of the USB modem.

Battery Powered!

Luckily, one of the tips that comes included with the Tekkeon MP3400 battery fits into the router.  Since the router only uses 5V, it will last a very, very long while time while connected to the Tekkeon.  If it can power my Q1 for 3 hours, then there’s nothing to worry about in the battery life department. 

WiFi Devices

I pulled out other WiFi gadgets to see if they could connect.  But first I set the wireless security of the router to use WEP since not all of my devices have a web browser to type in a password.  All the devices connected to the network with ease.

iPhone -  Browsing was fast.  I could connect to the iTunes WiFi Music Store.  The music previews wouldn’t play for some reason.  I bought a song and it downloaded fine.

PSP - Browsed web sites fine.  Left a tweet.  Didn’t try multiplayer games.

Sansa Connect - Connected and streamed LaunchCast radio fine.  Didn’t try downloading tracks but I assumed it would work.

Speed Test

Test Setup

Samsung Q1 900Mhz Celeron 2GB Windows XP Tablet Edition. 

These tests are with the U727 directly connected to the Samsung Q1’s USB port using the Sprint Mobile Broadband dialer.

Tests

In my house.  The signal strength isn’t all that great.  I’m getting -88dBm for EVDO.

The speed is a lot faster than EDGE though.  Here’s two speed tests (below).  I’ll probably expect that range in my area.  Hopefully higher when I go outside and close to a tower.

I tested downloading a file from download.com (below).  I could live with this.

Connected through router

Here’s some tests with the U727 plugged into the EVDO router which was then plugged into the Tekkeon MP3400 battery.

Not sure why the difference but it fluctuates a lot. 

I’ll do more tests in a better location and compare the results.  Pages certainly come up fast so this is working out alright.  With EVDO Rev.A I should be able to get around 1.2Mbps in a good area.  My town isn’t particularly great in terms of high speed.  DSL and cable is slow and there’s no HSDPA coverage.  So I’m probably going to expect normal EVDO speeds here.

Conclusion

Hey it works.  I have a portable WiFi network that’s powered with an external battery in a compact package.  How freaking awesome is that?

I will continue to post my thoughts as I use this set up.

The modem sticking out does concern me when I want to connect quickly.  It seems plugging it into the router, then plugging the router into the battery pack is a lot faster solution though. When sticking the modem straight into a device, it first has be recognized by the computer, you then have turn off WiFi, and finally launch the Sprint dialer to get online.

Either way, it’s still a pretty darn convenient and fast way to get connected, with almost any device.

I find it unbelievable I couldn’t find one thing to buy with my $100 Apple Store credit for being an iPhone early adopter.

The crap in the Apple Store is much more expensive than you can get elsewhere. I didn’t feel like getting ripped off. After wasting time browsing the site, I said to myself, screw it, and this is what I ended up with… if they allowed buying email based iTunes Gift Cards with Apple Store credit. So instead, I bought two $50 iTunes cards that will be mailed to me with the same message below.

All I’m saying now is, if I buy some songs with the iTunes WiFi Music Store through my iPhone, I better be able to burn them on to CD after sync’ing back to iTunes.

The download was a whopping 150MB’s.  First thing I tried was connecting through EDGE.  I guess there’s a good reason why it’s called the iTunes WiFi Music Store since it doesn’t work over EDGE.  Huge bummer.  Not like I would be using this much anyway since the DRM-free  Amazon MP3 Store was just  launched which definitely stole a lot of the thunder.  One great thing about the Amazon store is you don’t need a PC to download songs.  Just as long as you have a secure browser and can save a MP3 file, you’re all good.  One person with a modded iPhone grabbed a song with wget.  Taxman was able to download MP3’s from his HTC x7501 using Opera.

If it’s a convenient way to grab that one song that’s been playing over and over in your head while at Starbucks, it’ll be the way to go.  I’m sure it’ll be a huge hit.  I’ve just always been reluctant buying anything from iTunes.

Hong Kong Phooey has been playing around with the iPhone the past fews days and created some nice lists (I like lists if you’ve been paying attention) comparing it to the HTC Touch. I especially like he didn’t favor any particular device. He simply points out features he likes in each phone.

One interesting point he notes before diving in. “The HTC Touch IS a PDA Phone and the iPhone is more of a quasi-iPod with phone capabilities.”

My Take - iPhone vs HTC Touch « Hong Kong Phooey

From Mashables:

Utterz is a new mobile blogging community launched by RPM Communications, the same company that brought you Foonz. In conjunction with the launching of Utterz, RPM Communications is also announcing its Series A round of funding for $4 million, led by Morgenthaler Ventures.

With utterz, you can blog with your cell phone while you’re away from a computer. Within the Utterz network, your profile resembles a Twitter micro-blogging stream and shows all of your entries. These can be sorted by date, rating, and popularity. An utter blog entry can include audio, video, images and text. These can be created online or with your mobile phone. Utterz provides a phone number for you to call in and “speak” your blog entry, which appears as an audio file on your Utterz stream. This number can also be used for listening to Utterz, and responding to another user’s Utterz can be done via mobile phone as well. The Utterz community also has channels where you can participate with other users on a given topic.

There are also a handful of widget options for you to plug-in your Utterz updates into existing networks, including TypePad, Blogger, Xanga, MySpace, LiveJournal and Facebook. You can also grab the code for a widget to be placed on your personal website. There are three different widget options that vary in size. The most convenient aspects of Utterz is the number that can be dialed in order to leave a voice blogging entry, expanding the use of its service to those that may not have recording features on their cell phone, and removing other size limitations a mobile user may have for recording and sending an audio file from the hand set. The widgets also offer a good format for distributing Utterz on a cross-platform level.

*****

I just joined.

Since I’m using the iPhone most the time, no video utterz for me..  I’m left with text, images, and audio.

Seems like a mashup of all the other twitter clones except this supports all media and comments.  It’s without file transfers like Pownce.  Too bad it doesn’t do voice to text translation like Jott.com but I’m sure Jott will support it eventually.  It’s pretty cool you can reply to utterz all from you phone.

I’ll most likely stick with twitter since I like its simplicity and already have ‘friends’ on there.

I’ll try it out though.  I added a Utterz contact to my iPhone and put it on my Favorites list.  Add me if you want.  I’ll be lurking the utterz in case something interesting happens.  Or maybe send a voice message while I’m drunk on stage singing  ‘Purple Rain’ on karaoke night.

Via Mashable