Noreve was very kind to provide me with a sample case for a review.

First thing to notice is that Norive ships their cases in an easy access plastic packaging that encapsulates a nice box where the case and belt clip reside.  After taking the case out of its packaging, I was greeted with: the case itself, a Noreve-branded screwdriver, and Noreve’s  ratchet type belt clip system.

Ratcheting belt clip attaches to the case by a screw and a gear-like piece of metal that you see in the picture above.  Once those are secured onto the back of the case, you can simply slide the belt clip onto the “gear,” and you’ll be ready to go.

Once attached, the belt clip moves with ease but feels very solid.

I am not a big belt clip person so I have never really found the use for it, but I am sure many of you will use it daily.  I prefer to place my phone in the pocket, which brings me to another note about the case.

One important thing for me about the case was always to make sure it’s not very bulky, and this is where Noreve case shines.  It wraps the phone nicely without being too bulky in my hands or in my pocket, and gives enough protection all around.

Moving on to the functionality of the case, on the above picture you will see the right side of the case when the case is closed.  The screen is closed and protected, while  the side buttons (power and volume rocker) are perfectly accessible.

Here’s the bottom of the case. One thing you will notice that the bottom speaker is covered but since I never make phone calls with the flap closed, this should not be a problem.  At the same time, it serves another purpose, and it’s to prevent dirt from getting into the bottom speaker.

The top of the case has a stiff flap that holds the case closed.  I have found that the easiest way to open the case is to put my thumb slightly below the flap and my other two fingers on the top corners of the case, and it opens up without any problems.

The top also leaves the headphone jack completely exposed, so you can use those your headphones without any problem.

The back of the case houses the opening for the camera and dual LED flash.  The cutout is made perfectly not to obstruct ether the flash or the camera.

The inside of the case is  embossed very neatly with the company logo.  The leather feels very nice and soft, and it smells great!

Well it looks like this may be it, finally. The Verizon Equipment Guide has been updated with the official launch date of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus set for December 9th. As we all know, nothing is set in stone unless it has been officially announced by Verizon Wireless, but it looks like its time to get your wallets ready and arrange to be at a Verizon store Friday morning. Good luck to you all who is waiting for New Galaxy Nexus!

Source: DroidLife

Just  a little while ago Apple issued a news release that they have filed a suit against HTC, alleging that the company is infringing on 20 patents, like iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware.  We just have to sit back, and wait for more details to unfold!

CUPERTINO, California—March 2, 2010—Apple® today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone®, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

A really hyped Nexus One Smartphone (previously known as Google Phone) is finally launched. 

The phone is powered by Snapdragon processor and built by HTC.  The phone specs look very promising and the phone itself looks very sleek, but nothing ground breaking. 

Everyone expected this phone to be very sexy, but did Google Succeed?  Well The phone looks very sleek but the beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.  It sort of looks like a stretched version of Palm Pre with a trackball in the middle minus the keyboard.  The body of the handset is dark gray with lighter gray outer wrapper. 

The thickness of the phone is 11.5mm, and it measures at 59.8mm by 119mm.  In the front of the device there are four touch-sensitive buttons (back, menu, home, and search).  On the left side there are volume button, sleep / wake / power button on the top, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and on the bottom there’s a micro-USB port.

On the back of the phone you will find the a 5 megapixel camera and LED flash, which we hear takes some very nice pictures. 

Nexus One will run on 1GHz Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm.  As far as the internal memory, the phone has 512MB of both RAM and ROM.  The display is an AMOLED, 480 x 800 capacitive touch screen.  Some other features that the phone has are light sensor, proximity sensor, and accelerometer, and an HSPA-capable GSM radio (AT&T users will be out of luck), WiFi, and a microSD slot (which comes with a 4GB card, but is expandable to 32GB).

The pricing for Nexus One is set for $529.99 without contract, and $179 with a two-year agreement with T-Mobile.  Not really sure why Google decided to limit themselves to T-Mobile, but I guess future will show.

Source: Engadget

We have put together a list of gadgets that we feel would make any gadget and electronics lover jump for joy once they open their present and receive one of these:

1.  Amazon Kindle – Is a leader in e-book market.  It is very simple to use, and yet has enough gadgets to tech to impress almost any gadget geek.  There is a physical keyboard for ease of typing, and you can even browse the web 9basic text browsing).  there is plenty of content that can be downloaded directly through Amazon, paid and free, and it does support PDF format so you can upload your own documents.  

2.  Barnes & Noble Nook – This is a new e-book reader that is trying to give a very tough competition to the above mentioned Amazon kindle.  Current you can only pre-order the Nook, but some of the lucky people may actually receive it before Christmas.  The biggest difference with this device is its dual-screen interface, open format support.  If you tend to find yourself at Barnes & Noble a little much this device maybe for you.  

3.  Archos 5 Internet Tablet - Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet is not just another media player and internet device, it is also a GPS navigation.  This is a perfect gift with many features in one great package for all those garget lovers. 

4.  Apple iPhone 3GS – If you know someone who has been on the market for an iPhone but has not gotten one just yet, and you would like to be the one who can make it happen, Apple offers gift cards specifically for the phone, which makes it a relatively painless process for the one that you would like to give this perfect gift for.

5.  Motorola Droid – This is another great gift for this holiday season.  The Droid has Android 2.0, a beautiful capacitive WVGA display, 5 megapixel cam with LED flash, and OMAP3 processor.  Perfect gift for those hat would like to jump on the Android bandwagon.

6.  Lenovo X200 Multitouch Tablet – There are plenty of touch screen laptops out there, but what sets all of them apart is the Lenovo’s X200t new 12.1-inch multitouch capacitive display, 1.4GHz Intel SU9400 Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM just a start.  Most of these specs can be upgraded.  Not to mention that this is a sexy little tablet.

7.  Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro – if you are a MAC lover or the person who you would like to get this gift for, you may want to look in to an all new aluminum MacBook Pro. it has a very solid construction, a  very nice screen, Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor.  it will be able to handle almost anything you can throw at it.  You know you can run Windows on it as well right?

8.  Canon EOS 7D – Canon EOS 7D is a big brother of the T1i.  Not only is it a really nice DSLR camera with dual DIGIC IV processors, and 18 megapixel sensor, it is also a great video camera that can shoot 1080P.  It has a great low light performance, and it will not completely break your bank (well for some of you that is). 

9.  JVC HD Everio GZ-HM400- With a  capability of full HD recording, a 10.3 megapixel sensor, and 32GB internal storage with SD / SDHC expansion, makes this camcorder a great gift.  if you are in to sports and video shooting that requires high frame rate shooting, then 600fps, 300fps and 120fps slow motion capabilities will certainly get your heart racing.  

10.   Kodak’s Zi8 HD – Zi8 pocket camcorder boasts 1080p recording, in addition to face tracking, image stabilization, a 2.5-inch LCD display, and SD card slot. YouTube uploading, and Facebook support, too.  Its a great little gift and can be purchased for under $180.

AT&T has released a new iPhone app that will allow their customers to report any problems that they experience with their service.

If you have just experienced a dropped call, or poor service, no data service or static, you can just launch an application and report your problem directly to AT&T.

I don’t know about you, but I have been waiting for something like this for a long time, because every day I experience dropped calls in specific areas to the point where it is unacceptable.  This is a great app, but the big question is, how soon will AT&T will get to fixing the problems from the feedback that they receive from their customers?

You can get your app here App Store.

Verizon has announced that December 2nd will be the day that Samsung Omnia II will go on sale.  The rumors say that new Omnia II will come out with Windows Mobile 6.1 but it has been confirmed that it will have the all new 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA display.  It has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, WiFi, and 8GB of internal storage as well as expandable microSD expansion slot, and did we mention video mode.  Verizon’s site and retail locations will start selling the device on December 2nd and it will go for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Not that the Droid is out and at a very competitive pricing, what will you choose?  Choices Choices!

Source: VZW

In the mean time, here are the highlights from Palm’s about the changes made:

• Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
• You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
• A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
• Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
• If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.
• You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
• While listening to a song with album art displayed, you can tap the screen below the art to display a playback slider. Dragging the slider jumps forward or backward in the song.

 Source: Palm

Knocking, is a new photo-sharing app that you can pretty much instantaneously share up to 100 photos at once between two iPhones.  This works by establishing a connection between the two phones, during which one user selects another user with the app and “knocks” the pictures over to them.

For this to work, both people must have the Knocking application.  The app is free for the first 50,000 downloads.  With this app you are also able to control the photo viewing experience on another phone.  For example, if I want to send some pictures to someone, you can select and control which pictures a person can see. 

iPhone MMS allows you to send multiple images but the sending process is slow, and the selection process is not the best, but with Knocking, you can easily share complete albums.  MMS limits you to sending 5 pictures, but Knocking’s limits you to 100.  It takes only a couple of minutes to sync 100 pictures between the two phones.

There is also Facebook Connect integration to allow users to share their “knocks.” And Knocking works over both 3G and WiFi.

Give it a try, but remember only first 50,000 downloads are free.

If you are a gamer then you are clearly familiar with virtual currency and points that you can buy in many games that you can then trade for virtual currency to buy what ever it is that you may need to get that edge in the game.  But the time goes by and you no longer want to play this game anymore, or you won every level and have every piece of machinery that you ever wanted.  Where do you go from here?  Well most likely you just stop playing this game and move on to the next one.  So what about all that virtual currency that you have so patiently collected over the months or worse, years?  It would just sit there in your account until you decide to play the game again, or not.  Well, there may be a solution for this problem. 

A new startup company called Bodega, is working on a solution that will help users swap virtual goods and currencies across different games, and even across different social networks.

Bodega supposed to allow users sell their virtual goods at auction in return for Bodega’s own currency.  You can sell your virtual goods in an e-bay like fashion, where you can put it up as a ‘buy it now’ style purchase or an auction, with an ability to ser a reserve price.  Users looking to purchase these virtual goods or currency can obtain Bodega Money by buying them with their credit cards, or by selling their own virtual goods in the marketplace.

This sounds like a great idea and is very promising accept for one thing.  Unfortunately almost no game manufacturers have this ability developed for their games, weather it is PC, iPhone or web.  Currently Bodega is available on Facebook with plans to launch on MySpace, Bebo, and the iPhone in the near future.  iPhone market is full of these type of games and would be great if Bodega can get their foot in the door on many of these games.  Lets hope they can do it. 

Source:  Techcrunch