photo credit: Green Cell Phone Manufacturers

RIM BlackBerry scored the worst in GoodGuide’s list of green cell phone manufacturers. According to an article by Wendy Koch, USA Today, BlackBerry only earned a 3.3 rating, mostly for the company’s environmental record. Nokia took top honors, with Samsung coming in second. Apple’s iPhone also scored in the lower half of the manufacturers, again not because the material in the iPhone is toxic, but because Apple itself has problems with its “ethical policies and performance.” Nokia scored as the top green manufacturer. 26 of 30 of the top cell phones scored were made by Nokia, each scoring 7.7 or 7.6 out of a possible 10 points. Nokia C6 scored best overall. This is pretty impressive.

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photo credit: Verizon iPhone vs. AT&T iPhone

Which iPhone is faster—Verizon or AT&T? According to an article by Peter Svensson, (AP Technology) posted on TechBits, “the Verizon iPhone loads Web pages just as fast as AT&T’s version of the phone, even though Verizon’s network has lower data speeds, phone testing firm, Metrico Wireless reported.” However, Metrico Wireless said that data downloads on the Verizon iPhone turned out to be half as fast as those on AT&T’s network, but unless you are downloading data, most users didn’t notice much difference in web browsing. Metrico tested the Verizon iPhone’s performance with 4,000 calls and 10,000 Web page downloads in New York, Seattle, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas, Rich McNally, Metrico Wireless’ VP of Information Products said.

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photo credit: Motorola Xoom - Now or Later?

The Motorola Xoom became available February 24th. With its 10.1 inch screen and 1280 by 800 resolution display, it is perfect for displaying pictures and presentations. The Xoom’s Honeycomb OS runs Nvidia’s Tegra 2 platform, with a dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of on-board user memory (plus an SD card slot). What’s not to love? Why not rush out and buy it now?

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photo credit: Android 3.0 vs. iPad 2

Pad wars are heating up. Today Apple is hosting an event in San Francisco where they are rumored to be revealing the new iPad 2. Google revealed the new Honeycomb (Android 3.0) last month. And the race is on! There are many Android based tablets debuting this year. Will they be able to compete with the new iPad 2?

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photo credit: iPad 2 Event

The much touted iPad 2 is rumored to be revealed today in San Francisco at 1:00 pm. Special invitations for the event were sent out with a sneaky-looking iPad peeking out from behind the date. Rumors are flying about just what the new features will be. According to Catharine Smith, The Huffington Post, MacLife offers a sobering prediction: “While many may be disappointed if Apple doesn’t ’shock and awe’ with the next iPad, the reality is that the company’s tablet is leading the market by such a wide margin at this point, Cupertino can still afford to coast a little bit — at least until September, when the rumor mill claims we’ll likely see a more spectacular iPad 2 with the bells and whistles that make us all swoon.”

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photo credit: Top Virtuous Cell Phones

Wonder what impact your cell phone has on the environment? GoodGuide has just published a report rating the top 5 “virtuous” cell phones. The ratings are based upon not only environmentally safe practices, but also takes into consideration the social attributes as well? “Social attributes?” you may ask. This rating has to do with the safety and labor policies of the company manufacturing the cell phones. GoodGuide ranks individual models and manufacturers on 3 levels: health, environment, and social attributes. 576 phone models were rated.

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photo credit: Top Windows 7 Phones

Windows 7 Phones may just surprise you. While Windows 7 Phone sales are still way behind the Android and iPhone, (there are currently about 300,000 Android devices and over 3 million iPhones have been sold), Bonnie Cha, CNET, touts the Windows 7 Phone features as “more to love than not love.” Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Windows Phone Apps Too Expensive?

Comparison chart shows paid apps for Windows Phones are on average more expensive than apps for iPhones. According to O’Reilly Research, the average Windows phone app will cost you $6.16, whereas the apps for the iPhone are only $3.43 on average. In an article by Jay Yarow, Business Insider, gives us a comparison chart for the various app categories. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Microsoft Kin Smartphones

Microsoft has entered the phone market! The new phones, Kin One and Kin Two will hit the US market in May through Verizon, and through carrier Vodafone Group PLC (which owns Verizon Wireless in partnership with Verizon Communications Inc.), in Germany, Italy, Spain and The United Kingdom later this fall. Microsoft did not mention a release date for Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Droid Phone delays

Google announced it is postponing the launch of the Android phones in China due to cyber spying coming from China. Google says it can no longer accept the censoring of search results on its site in China. Because of this, analysts say it could drastically hurt both Motorola and Samsung who have placed a big emphasis on the Droid phones. Read the rest of this entry »