The Affordable Touch Screen Phone

In a world of increasingly popular smartphones people who cant afford a top of the line phone might have trouble finding a suitable cellular device. Many consumers just need a phone for simple messaging and phone call usage. The LG Neon is such a phone. It is a bare bones cell phone with a neat touch screen and a camera that actually takes decent looking pictures.

The LG Neon is a very nice looking cell phone. The phone doesnt have any harsh lines. The phone is smooth with rounded edges. The LG Neon is very small and doesnt weigh much, but it still feels good when held in ones hand. The sliding mechanism works well and doesnt feel shaky at all. Despite the small screen images and text will appear great on it. There are also many different options for customizing the font and appearance of the commands on the phone. The LG Neon does feature a touch screen, but strangely enough it only works for dialing numbers. To activate the touch screen dialer you must first hit a button on the navigator array. Then the buttons are displayed on the screen. The touch screen works well but being able to use it for other reasons is surely missed. Inside the slide compartment is a full QWERTY keyboard. The keys are spaced apart very generously and each button is raised above the surface. Typing on this keyboard is very easy and isnt uncomfortable. There are a number of instant messaging and e-mail linking options, such as AOL, AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Unfortunately Gmail is not supported by the phone because the LG Neon doesnt support POP or IMAP.

The LG Neon is also a camera phone as well. It offers many image capturing and photo controls. Despite featuring five white balance presets, three quality settings, a 4x zoom, self timer, and five color effects the phone is absent a flash. Be wary of taking photos in dark areas. The quality of the video recorded by the Neon is decent. It can appear grainy and the colors will be slightly muted. The LG Neon doesnt allow the videos to be very long, but anyone with a MicroSD card will be able to record longer videos.

The phone lacks any 3G or Wi-Fi support meaning downloading songs and content will take quite a while. It was so slow it took 12 minutes to download a 1MB song. The web browsing also suffers it can be very slow as well; websites take quite a while to load.

The call quality presented by the LG Neon is above average. The microphone on the Neon does an amazing job at isolating ones voice and not picking up any background noise, even in loud noise traffic areas. The speakerphone does not work as well though. Callers and even music played over it will sound very low.

The LG Neon is a satisfactory phone for anyone looking for something that isnt so expansive. It exceeds at providing consumers with a great phone service as well as text messaging, camera/video recorder, and basic web browsing functions.

IPTV – 10 Important Facts and Advantages

Is IPTV technology everything it’s cracked up to be, or is it here today and gone tomorrow?

Check out these 10 facts and advantages about IPTV technology and decide whether or not you want to join the IPTV revolution.

1. Internet protocol television or IPTV, is an increasingly popular technology for the transportation of data information and Audio and Video (AV), across an IP based digital network. This could include Ethernet, WAN, LAN or internet. Add a set top box (STB) to the equation and AV sources can be streamed across existing networks to PCs or TVs. IPTV can be one to one (Unicast) or one to many (Multicast).

2. Latest research figures show that at present 15.5 million people subscribe to IPTV services – 8.4 million of these subscribers are from Europe.

3. Crucially IPTV systems avoidinterruptionof critical networks by utilising a separate video LAN.

4. IPTV requires broadband Internet connectivity due to the high bandwidth requirements of digital video. Far more control over television programming and the ability to customize it to individual user preferences are possible due to the improved performance that high speed internet allows.

5. The ever popular Free-view channels are delivered without Terrestrial or SAT receivers being a requirement.

6. Local content, films and sport can be added for additional revenue in hotels, or offered free to a student campus.

7. Predictions are that compared to the current 3.3 million IPTV subscribers in the United States now, there will be around 12.7 million IPTV users by 2012.

8. The addition of set top boxes (STB) allow AV sources to be streamed across existing networks to PCs or TVs.

9. Problems that are common in analogue systems such as noise, ghosting, harmonics, reflections, cross modulation etc, are practically invisible in IPTV based networks.

10. Due to its storage facility, IPTV systems allow all programs to be later retrieved from the IPTV network.

A Novel Use of IPTV Technology

A classic example of how IPTV technology is being used in an increasingly ingenious number of ways, is with a luxurious, IP enabled bathroom television. These televisions are the ultimate in bathroom luxury, allowing the viewer safely to watch TV whilst soaking in a bath full of bubbles, or even taking a shower.

These waterproof TVs offer a first class solution to hotels across the world who are embracing IPTV technology with the installation of digital IPTV networks across their properties. Hiding an STB in the void behind the bathroom or shower wall and running a separate IR receiver will no longer be required, but instead simply feeding an Ethernet cable into the back of the screen to deliver TV, Radio, VOD and other services will be all that is needed.

How about that for technology put to great use!