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Amazon Posts The Deal Of The Century: Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 & 10vi Earphones – $99, Down From $399 – Amazing Value, Perfect For Mobile Phones

Artem Russakovskii — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:21:03 +0000

Today Amazon posted a Goldbox superdeal on the stunning Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 And TripleFi 10vi earphones. The price drop is absolutely mind blowing – they now cost $99 instead of $400.

I've been watching these earphones for 3 years and I've never seen them drop to even $250. Even Black Friday couldn't even dream of a deal like this. After seeing today's deal, I'm upgrading from SuperFi 5 to TripleFi 10vi.

So why am I so excited?

Because:

these earphones are some of the best you can buy, even at full price. I've owned their "younger brother" Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 for the last 3 years (see my review of those) and I still can't stop raving about them. I've influenced many people to buy them and every single one has had nothing but positive things to say about their purchase
the sound quality is stunning – I remember putting them on for the first time and hearing sounds and instruments in my music that I never imagined were there all along. Even though they have a small size, they sound just as good as those BIG professional studio hearphones
the sound isolation – crying babies? A train passing by right by your ears? I can't hear any of those because these insulate the sounds so well. At the same time, I don't feel like they go too deep into my ear – in fact, they're very comfortable
sturdy cord – it is thicker and sturdier than any other cord I've ever seen. This means it won't rip, break, or strip easily
the cord is replaceable - cord damage is the #1 reason for throwing away your headphones. With Ultimate Ears, you can just snap the cable off and replace it with a new one. Replacement cords cost $20 but so far all I had to do was email or call Ultimate Ears and ask them for one – and they sent it to me for free.
best customer service in the business – any time I dialed the customer service number, my call was answered by a live person within 30 seconds. All my problems were resolved at no charge and in a very polite manner.
got an iPhone, Android, or another mobile phone? Get the TripleFi 10vi model because it actually has a built-in microphone, which means you can use it with your phone as a headset. I specifically bought the 10vi model to use it with my HTC Hero.
compared to the SuperFi 5, TripleFi 10 has an extra driver (3 drivers total!) which means better bass and clarity. I could really tell the difference when I was comparing the 2 models.

Conclusion

So my advice for you is: try them. If you don't like them (which is impossible), send them back.

I am rarely *this* excited about a product. Ultimate Ears earphones, however, brings out the jitters in me even today.

Do you own UltimateEars or are you considering getting them? Have questions or comments? Feel free to share below.

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Meet Firefox For Mobile [Video + Feature Highlights + More Info]

Artem Russakovskii — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:47:21 +0000

When I visited Mozilla's offices about 6 months ago, I saw a mobile testing station which included about 20-30 different phones lounging around, with their chargers plugged in. I knew something serious was coming soon. There were rumors about Firefox for Mobile for a while but nothing to really show for it. That was then…

Today, however, we know a lot more. Firefox for Mobile, codenamed Fennec, is coming next month (see More Info below) and looks very promising.

Here is a recent video of the Firefox's mobile and design teams discussing and showing the features of Mobile Firefox:

Feature Highlights

For the busy folks, here are the highlights from the video:

Mobile Firefox uses as much screen real estate as possible to show the page
swipe screen left to see the open tab list
swipe right to see navigation buttons
awesome bar knows what you're looking for as you start typing, just like in your desktop Firefox
sync using Mozilla Weave – seamless sync desktop and mobile, including history and open tabs
location based browsing – allows sharing your location with websites automatically (obviously, with your approval only – excellent!)
security and privacy are the #1 priority
mobile add-ons – they're trying to create the same development platform that the desktop Firefox already uses. Yup, that means AdBlock is coming.
HTML 5 support

And some more from Mozilla and GigaOM's interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly:

support for Javascript, CSS, Flash, SVG, video, and audio
based on Firefox 3.6 engine which is not even available for desktops yet
Firefox for Mobile will initially support Windows Mobile and Maemo, followed by Android and Symbian

surely, iPhone owners are out of luck as Apple will never allow a competing browser app on their market. Great – another reason to switch to Android
Blackberry users are also out of luck as BB uses Java
Android also uses Java and initially Mozilla ignored it. However, later the Android NDK came out, which allows building of applications in C/C++ and this fact changed everything

the first public releases should be available in December 2009, according to this article.

Some useful linkage:

Mozilla's own Mobile wiki page
Mobile features
Supported platforms (looks slightly out of date)
GigaOM: On Mobile Phones, Firefox’s Big Bet Is Nokia & Android
Firefox Headed to Android Phones

Conclusion

Firefox for Mobile is going to be a serious contender in the mobile web space – we know how serious these guys can get, don't we? After all, they've turned a barely known browser into a #2 in the last few years (soon to be #1, right?). Surely, they can do it again, this time in mobile.

I will be trying out Mobile Firefox (for Android) as soon as I get my hands on it, so expect a detailed review then. I have little doubt that it will replace my plain mobile browser.

What do you guys think?

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HTC Hero Coming To Sprint October 11th! $179.99, Powerful, And Sexy. Here Is Why You Need To Own It

Artem Russakovskii — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:16:55 +0000

Well, it looks like the wait is over. I have been waiting for almost 5 years for a new phone that is good enough to make the switch from Samsung A900 (which has free tethering). Don't even get me started on the iPhone and its outrageous monopoly with AT&T. Android and the growing multitude of devices running it is, however, completely different business. Android offers unparallel freedom and I truly believe it will be the top phone OS within a few years as more and more Android phones are introduced to the market.

But where was I? I have been closely following Android news since its inception, then the introduction of the first phone – T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream), followed by G2 (aka T-Mobile MyTouch 3G, HTC Magic, Google ION), the introduction of the app store (Android Market), and noticing throughout all this time that Android was still not quite there, not appealing to the masses, and not picking up speed. But then…

The Hero

I believe the market perception of Android is about to change because of the newest Android phone – HTC Hero. Thanks to Phandroid (my favorite Android blog) for the announcement.

Why

Hero has a super sexy Sense user interface. Just check out this video of the European version of Hero running Sense (the US version looks slightly different):

Hero also has:

Flash support (!) – the one from Adobe, not the one that helps taking photos. That means playing flash games, videos, etc, which iPhone does not support and is not planning to support in the near future.
First Android phone to support multitouch. It also has a trackball.
Lipophobic coating – special coating to repel fingerprint oils.
A speedy 528Mhz Qualcomm processor.
5MP camera with autofocus – 5 megapixels is a step up over most of the competition, except maybe Nokia.
GPS.
Digital compass.
MicroSD slot for expanding memory.
WiFi 802.11b/g.
Accelerometer.
Audio supported formats: MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9.
Video supported formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9.
And of course, it runs Android applications.

Check out this comparison between HTC Hero, MyTouch 3G, Apple iPhone 3GS, and BlackBerry Storm:

When

Hero is already released in Europe and is coming to the US to Sprint on October 11, 2009.

How Much

$179.99 after a mail-in rebate and a 2 year agreement with Sprint.

Speed/Lag Concerns

Initial reviews of the Hero reported occasional lag, especially with a lot of widgets activated on the home screens. However, it looks like the latest firmware updates may have fixed the lag issues. We will see very shortly.

The Chin

The US version of the Hero does NOT have the "chin" like the European version does. Compare the picture of the EU version (below) with the pictures of the US version (further down in the Media section).

Pictures Of The US Version

I'm extremely excited about the Hero. It is the strongest Android contender on the market. Can you feel the excitement? Go out and get yours on October 11th!

Relevant Links

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Sun Definitely Developing A Phone This Year

Artem Russakovskii — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:30:06 +0000

One thing that still springs to mind when I think of the MySQL User Conference last week is Sun's opening keynote. While talking about Sun's market penetration with open source software, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO, slipped in a short mention of the mobile market saying something along the lines of "Sun is going to be entering the mobile market later on this year". He didn't spend more than 5 seconds talking about it, moving on to the acquisition of MySQL.

Last year, Sun already made an announcement of JavaFX, a Java-based mobile platform but didn't provide any concrete timelines, so I was excited to hear the more on the subject. With Apple iPhone's advent last year and Google entering the same space later on this year with Android, Sun's addition to the game definitely won't hurt consumers. After all, competition usually leads to better products.

So when is the phone coming, Jonathan? My guess is you're going to try as hard as possible to compete with Google's second half of 2008 timeline but are you going to manage to beat it? And will it blow us away? I guess time will show.

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