Who're the Biggest Mobile Phone Makers in the World?

Do you know who the biggest mobile phone maker is in the world? Yes, you’re right - it’s Nokia. Nokia is still the No.1 cell phone manufacturer with 35.1% worldwide market share, which increased from 32.5% last year. Motorola is in second place with 20.6% market share, an increase from 18.7% a year ago. Samsung has kept its third position with 12.2% market share, but it fell from 12.5% last year.

Sony Ericsson is in 4th place. Its market share has increased from 6.7% last year to 7.7% this year. The 5th place is LG Electronics. We don’t see many LG mobile phones in New Zealand but its Chocolate series is quite popular overseas. The following one is BenQ, the biggest mobile phone maker in Taiwan. Its market share dropped to 2.4% from 4.7% last year.

In the third quarter of 2006, Nokia has sold 88.1 million units worldwide and Motorola has shipped 51.9 million units. The full-year sales forecast of the worldwide mobile phone shipment is 986 million units. The estimated demand for 2007 is 1.1 billion cell phones.

Who're the Most Popular Search Engines?

Which search engine do you use most? I use Google New Zealand more than 90% of the time but let’s have a look what the American’s are using.

According to comScore, in October 2006, Google captured 45.4% of the U.S. search market and Yahoo! kept its second place with 28.2% market share of U.S. searches. Followed by MSN (11.7%), Ask Network (5.8%) and Time Warner Network (5.4%).

According to Nielsen//Netratings, Yahoo!’s searches have increased by 30% from last year, while Google only increased by 23%. MSN/Windows Live Search fell 8% and Ask.com jumped 25%.

BTW, do you want to know what are the most popular search queries on Google in New Zealand? Here’s the result for September 2006 (Data Source: Google Zeitgeist)

1. trademe
2. steve irwin
3. nzdating
4. air new zealand
5. high school musical
6. nz herald
7. jessica alba
8. rockstar supernova
9. richard hammond
10. paris hilton
11. national bank
12. kiwibank
13. peter brock
14. crocodile hunter

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or Wii?

It’s approaching the end of the year and some of you may be thinking of buying a new game console for yourself or your kids. However, which one should we choose - the long waited Sony PlayStation 3, the available Microsoft Xbox 360 or the new Nintendo Wii?

Sony PlayStation 3

Sony has sold over 111 million units of PlayStation 2 worldwide, so there’s no doubt that PlayStation is the most popular game console in the planet. But PlayStation 3 has taken so long to come. It has only just released for sale in Japan and U.S. and sales are very good so far. For our poor Kiwi gamers, we need to wait until March 2007.

The console will cost around NZ$1,200 when it gets here. It has very strong graphics, supporting resolutions up to 1080p, Blu-ray drive and 60GB hard drive. Will it be worth the wait and the high price tag? If you’re a serious gamer and PS fan, the answer will definitely be “yes”.

Microsoft Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 has been in the market for a while now and it may be the best option for now. The complete system costs around NZ$720, which is much cheaper compared with the soon-to-be-released PlayStation 3. It only comes with a 20GB hard drive and doesn’t have the high-definition DVD player, although you can add the HD-DVD add-on in the future. One more thing to note, PS3 will have HDMI connection, but Xbox is only using component video. The graphic quality is good though on Xbox.

Nintendo Wii

Who’s the Nintendo Wii for? It’s for people who have kids, are on a budget or not super gamers. But it could also be for those super gamers who want it as an addition to the other consoles. The graphics of Wii are not that impressive, but it has a very good price tag – NZ$500. It will be available on 7th December 2006.

The Wii feels more like a toy than a video game console and its innovative controller will give you a different gaming experience. The TV remote-like controller has motion-sensor abilities and you can swing it to play tennis games.

Another Option?

Want a great gaming experience for Christmas? You can buy an Xbox core system for NZ$550 and a Wii for NZ$500. That will cost you $1,050 in total - which is cheaper than a single PlayStation 3. Of course, you can add another PS3 next year if you have enough money left in your pocket.

Intel Launches Quad-Core Chips

Intel has released the quad-core chip family. The family includes the Xeon 5300 and Core 2 Extreme QX6700 for the server market and the gaming PC segment respectively. According to Intel, the Xeon 5300 will be 50% faster than Intel’s own Xeon 5100 chip, and the QX6700 is 80% faster than the X6800.

The quad-core Xeon 5300 CPU has four versions. The 1.60GHz E5310 (selling for US$455 - NZ$690); the 1.86GHz E5320 (selling for US$690 - NZ$1,045); the 2.33GHz E5345 (selling for US$851 - NZ$1,290) and the 2.66GHz X5355 (selling for US$1,172 - NZ$1,775). The quad-core gaming chip Core 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz will cost US$999 (NZ$1,510).

Up to now, server vendors including Dell, HP and IBM have announced systems using the quad-core processors, and others including Fujitsu etc. will join the list soon. Gaming desktop manufacturers including Alienware, Dell, Gateway and Voodoo Computers etc. plan to use the QX6700.

Will the quad-core CPUs make a big impact on the performance? For servers and workstations, the answer is “yes”. However, normal desktop and notebook users won’t see a big difference between dual-core processors, unless they’re running high-end video games or editing high quality videos and photos.

Actually, there is not many application software in the market that can support multithread processing yet. Adobe’s Premiere Pro is one of the few desktop multithreaded software. We’ll also need operating systems which can support multi-core processing and Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems are developing versions of their current operating systems so that they can utilize the full strength of the new chips.

Intel will launch two more quad-core Xeon chips and mainstream Core 2 Quad processors in the first quarter of 2007, and AMD is also planning to introduce its quad-core Opteron server chip in the middle of 2007.

Zune Officially Launched

Microsoft's MP3 player Zune officially launched today in the U.S. It's sold for US$249.99 (NZ$380) on Amazon.com.

Let's have a close look of its images (above) and features (below).

Size and Weight

• 11.2 cm. x 6.1 cm. x 1.5 cm. (h x w x d)
• Weight: 159 grams
  

Battery

• Music, up to 14 hours (wireless off), up to 13 hours (wireless on); pictures, up to 4 hours; video, up to 4 hours
• Charge Time: 3 hours; 2 hours to 90%

Display

• Size: 3.0 inches
• Orientation: Vertical and Horizontal
• Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels

Audio

• Windows Media® Audio Standard (.wma): Up to 320 Kbps, CBR and VBR, up to 48-kHz sample rate
• MP3 (.mp3): Up to 320 Kbps, CBR and VBR, up to 48-kHz sample rate
• AAC (.mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .mov): Up to 320 Kbps, Low Complexity (LC), up to 48-kHz sample rate

Pictures

• JPEG (.jpg): All resolutions (desktop software will automatically convert to 640x480 at sync time)

Video

• Windows Media Video (.wmv): Main Profile, CBR or VBR, up to 1.5 Mbps peak video bitrate, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., with Windows Media Audio up to 192 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo audio; Simple Profile, CBR, up to 736 Kbps video bitrate, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., with Windows Media Audio up to 192 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo audio.

Wireless

• Connectivity: 802.11 b/g
• Range: Up to 9.1 metres
  

Language

• English

Another Revolution from Logitech – Logitech diNovo Edge Keyboard

Logitech announced its world’s most advanced mouse a few months ago – the Logitech MX Revolution. But where is the world’s most advanced keyboard? Logitech have announced the launch of it and it won’t disappoint - the Logitech diNovo Edge.

At this stage the arrival date in New Zealand is 10 December 2006 – we’ll keep you updated as this time comes near. This new flagship keyboard has an ultra-slim design with a vertical charging base, plus touch-disc scrolling and Bluetooth wireless connection.

Some of its key features are:

• PerfectStroke key system
• Stylishly sleek
• Elegant charging base
• TouchDisc scrolling
• Backlit stealth controls
• Bluetooth wireless technology

However, it doesn’t come with the area for the normal right hand side numerical keys so it won’t be very convenient for accountants, will it? But if you’re used to notebook keyboards, it won’t be a big issue.

Click the link for more information and pricing – Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard. BTW, if you combine it with the Logitech MX Revolution mouse, they will bring to you, a premium desktop experience! A perfect Christmas gift for yourself.

A Little Story about Computer Security

My friend asked me to re-install her computer during the weekend, as her computer had been badly affected by a virus. She said her computer always got virus and asked me how she could stop them. It’s quite simply actually. I’ve never had major virus attacks on my computer, because I do the following three things:

1. Update your windows regularly
2. Buy a decent security software
3. Update your security software and run complete system scan weekly

The above actions won’t cost you a lot – the only cost actually is the purchase of the security software. They also won’t take you much time, most of them can be done automatically or by clicking a single button.

Windows is like a house and all the software and applications are furniture inside the house. Windows is not a perfect house, although Microsoft always said it’s the best house it ever built. Windows XP is house with lots of holes (hope Windows Vista will have fewer holes). All the unwelcome guests may come in, small guests like flies may annoy you, and big guests like burglars may steal from you or even threaten your safety. You may also encounter water and fire. They may destroy your house completely.

Virus, Spyware and other computer threats are those unwelcome guests - water and fire. How can we stop them? Firstly, fix your house with those free updates from the house builder (Microsoft). If you turn on your automatic update, the house will try to fix itself. However, even a perfect house won’t stop things like flies. So secondly, you’ll need an effective insecticide. I recommend the newest Norton Internet Security 2007 for normal home users. It will try to kill flies every time they see one and protect you from every possible threat.

Unfortunately, there are new species of flies every day and some of them are hiding in your house. So thirdly, update your security software regularly and run a system scan weekly. They will find out the hidden virus and kill them. Most of the decent security software can do automatic updates and you can schedule the weekly system scan.

It’s not that hard, right? So if you do the above three steps properly, your computer will probably be safe from those viruses.

Top Hard Drive MP3 Player – Toshiba Gigabeat S30

A couple of days ago, I reviewed the Creative ZEN Vision:M hard drive based MP3 player. Today I’ll introduce you to another hard drive MP3 player – the Toshiba Gigabeat S30 Portable Media Centre.

The reason Toshiba calls it a Portable Media Centre rather than an MP3 player, is because that it not only plays music, but is also able to download and play TV shows, as well as displaying photos. Same as the other players, it uses 30GB hard drive for 7,500 songs maximum.

The Gigabeat S30 has a beautiful 2.4” TFT LCD screen. It’s thin and lightweight – a similar size to an iPod but slightly thicker. The audio quality is great, and the playback time is approx. 12 hours. It comes with an FM radio tuner, but cannot recode the programme and make voice recordings.

Unfortunately, not as the Creative ZEN Vision:M’s three colours, the Gigabeat S30 only has the piano white colour available. It uses Microsoft’s Media Centre navigation and can also steam your music library to your Xbox 360 (if you have one of course).

Overall, the Toshiba Gigabeat S30 is a hard drive media player with a beautiful screen, good sound and great features. Click the link for more information and pricing – Toshiba gigabeat S30 Portable Media Centre. BTW – Toshiba makes the new Zune music player for Microsoft.

Windows Vista Will Be Available To Consumers on 30 Jan 07

Microsoft confirms that Windows Vista will be available to consumers on 30 January, 2007. Microsoft also plans to launch Vista to business customers on 30 November 2006. Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 will be launched at the same time.

Apple Ships Core 2 Duo MacBooks

Starting at AU$1749 inc GST, MacBook uses Intel Core 2 Duo — the latest generation of Intel processors — and other features including a built-in iSight camera for video chatting on the go; iLife ’06; Front Row; a glossy 13-inch widescreen display and dual-display support.

Top Photo Printer – Canon PIXMA iP6700D

In the previous weeks, I have introduced one of the best (in my opinion) photo printers from HP – the HP Photosmart D7360. But HP is not the only brand who produces good photo printers. As we know, Canon also makes great ones, so today let’s have a look at the Canon PIXMA iP6700D.

The iP6700D has many good features, such as the big 3.5” colour pop-up LCD screen that allows basic printing work without the need for a PC. It can also print on CDs and DVDs, and can do two-sided (duplex) printing as well. Apart from the USB 2.0 connection, its infrared interface can receive images from supported mobile phones.

The iP6700D’s maximum resolution is 9600 x 2400 dpi, comes bundled with some Canon self-branded software, including Easy-PhotoPrint, Easy-WebPrint, PhotoRecord and CD-LabelPrint.

The print quality is good, but the speed is average, printing approx. 18 ppm for B&W pages and approx. 17 ppm for colour graphics.

Overall, the Canon PIXMA iP6700D is a good quality six-ink photo printer for photo and CD/DVD print jobs. Click the link for more information and pricing - Canon PIXMA iP6700 Colour Bubble Jet Printer

Top Hard Drive MP3 Player – Creative ZEN Vision:M

Have you ever thought about purchasing a hard drive based MP3 player? If your answer is ‘yes’, what’s your first choice? I think many people may say Apple’s iPod, because that’s the one they know best, but iPod is not the only player in the field, and it’s not the best one either - although it is the most famous one. If these hard drive MP3 players are students in a class, iPod will be the class rep, but it’s a student who can only get 85 out of 100. Who’s the student who can get 95? The answer is here – Creative ZEN Vision:M.

Creative has been producing MP3 players and competing with Apple for a long time. Although they have never exceeded Apple (no one has), they do make excellent machines. The Creative ZEN Vision:M will be the one which can beat iPod on features and functionalities.

The Vision:M uses 30GB hard drive, which is the same capacity as the 30GB iPod video. It can play music, photo and video. For music, it supports MP3, WMA and WAV. The playable video formats include DivX 4 & 5, XviD, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4-SP, WMV9 and Motion-JPEG. In addition, it carries an FM tuner/recorder and a voice recorder (iPod doesn’t have these functions).

The Creative ZEN Vision:M has the finest colour screen and sound quality we’ve ever seen and heard on a portable player. It also has an additional colour option than iPod – the green one in addition to black and white.

Unfortunately, the Vision:M does have a few drawbacks compared to the iPod video. It’s about 1.5 times thicker than the iPod. You’ll also need to use the included adapter to charge the player and sync with your computer. And it’s MediaSource application is not as good as Apple’s iTunes. If you don’t mind these flaws, it will be a perfect one for you.

Click the following links for more information and pricing:

• Creative ZEN Vision:M MP3 Player – Green
• Creative ZEN Vision:M MP3 Player – Black
• Creative ZEN Vision:M MP3 Player – White

Windows Media Player 11 Is Now Final

The final version of Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 has become available. I think most of us have Windows Media Player 9 or 10 on our Windows machines, now it’s time to upgrade – it’s free.

You may ask “what’s new in version 11?”. I think the biggest change is the interface. It’s more user friendly and easier to use. It also integrates the MTV Network’s Urge music store, where you can buy 2 million songs from more than 110,000 artists. It’s definitely a competitor to Apple’s iTunes and costs are similar – only disadvantage is that the Urge doesn’t work with iPods.

Media Player 11 also has a few new features for Windows users - better search capabilities, an easier-to-use navigation system and it includes an audio fingerprinting capability that can recognize mislabelled media files.

Download it free from Microsoft website, click here.

Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Watch

I think we’ll be able to wear our mobile phones on our wrists sometime in the near future – but not just yet. If you’re already thirsty for a mobile phone watch, Sony Ericsson does have something for you. Although it cannot replace your mobile phone yet, the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Watch MBW-100 does work with your current mobile phone. It’s a classic premium analogue timepiece with built-in wireless call handling and phone music player control.

Stay with the music - by touching the crown of the watch, you can steer your phone’s music player to play, stop and skip to next track.

Stay available – The OLED display on the watch shows the caller ID and SMS/MMS alter.

Stay within reach – The watch will vibrate when your phone gets too far away and also has a battery indicator.

Stay focused – Too busy to talk? You can press a key on the watch to reject or mute an incoming call.

Very cool!!!

Top Colour Laser Printer – Oki Printing Solutions C3400n

I believe colour laser printers will become the mainstream for office and home printings in the near future, and will replace most of the current B&W laser printers and colour inkjet printers. Let’s have a look at the Oki C3400n colour laser printer today.

The Oki C3400n Desktop Colour Laser Printer is an entry-level colour laser printer with network ability. It deliveries high quality text printing and fast colour speeds. It can print colour at 16 pages per minute and do mono printing at 20ppm. It is a compact size and will easily fit your working area.

In short, the high-quality text printing, fast colour printing and compact size makes it stand out. However, it does have some drawbacks as the operating costs may be high and there is no optional paper tray available.

For more information and pricing, click the link – Oki Printing Solutions C3400n Desktop Colour Printer.