Tuxtops

Today in Last Vegas, a joint announcement made by Nokia, Motorola, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Modeo heralded the formation of a new industry group that is meant to promote the development and use of the Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) standard for mobile TV. The group will be known as the Mobile DTV Alliance.

EPL Technology Ltd sent us in a pair of their T905s Bluetooth Hi-Fi Stereo Headset and their A370 iPod Mini audio gateway. Read more for our full review.

The first thing that stroke us positively when opening the box was the amount of accessories included with the main two products! There is a USB charging cable that ends in two mini-USB plugs so you can charge both the T905s and the A370 at the same time. There is also a very small A/C wall plug that also splits on two-mini USB slots for dual charging. There is also a 3.5mm-to-2.5mm adapter for audio jacks that are usually used on mobile phones, a 3.5mm-to-6.5mm and also an adapter that allows the A370 to be used with any HiFi device and not just an iPod Mini.

The most amazing accessory though is the cable that allows to tap on any component-audio-out device and capture its audio and transmit it via Bluetooth. For example, such a device is a DVD player, a TV, the cable or satellite box etc. This is a great way to watch a movie or a sports show without disturbing your family or partner.

The neckband T905s headphones are very comfortable to wear and they are very easy to fit correctly around the head. Their design is modern and they look pretty futuristic, making the design best recommended for teenagers. On the right earphone there is a boom microphone which is used when the headphones are on the headset/handsfree profile mode. The microphone can be retracted and not be visible if the user doesn't want it to. The headphones can be condensed in a mini-position that take less space and can be easily transported in a bag or purse. The build quality is good on both products, however I had a problem with the USB charging port on the headphones which was very loose and was coming out a bit too easily.

The A370 audio gateway connects at the iPod Mini and indeed does not look like an alien add-on, it fits pretty nicely on top. The A370 transmits audio in the A2DP format which any A2DP-capable headphone can pick up (AVRCP not supported). Pairing between the A370 and the T905s went perfectly, and also the pairing of the T905s with my E680i phone and my HP iPaq rx3115 went well too. The music these devices transmitted to the T905s was reproduced by the headphones in high quality, quality that we were indeed happy with. One thing that could have been better though was the Volume on the headphones that doesn't go very high. The headphones can carry out the A2DP and HSP/HFP profiles, but there is no support for AVRCP. When your T905s are connected both on a music player and a phone, the music will be automatically interrupted in the event of a phone call, so you never miss a call. There are three buttons on the right earphone that control pairing, hangup, answer, mute, redial, voice dialing, volume, etc.

We found the T905s compatible with our phones in the HSP/HFP mode, and it also worked in A2DP format with the audio gateway and our Motorola phone. However, the headphones failed to work with the Windcom Bluetooth stack on our HP iPaq with Windows 2003SE. The pairing went well, but the actual audio wouldn't get transmitted to the headphones.

The other problem is battery life. Both devices managed barely 5 hours of continuous playback, which is a far cry from Anycom's 11 hours and Plantronics' 12 hours stereo bluetooth headphones. Additionally, the manual states that the headphones have only 140 hours of standby time, but in order to go into standby it says that you press the Power button for 3 seconds. Thing is, that's also the way to turn off the headphones completely, so I found that part a bit fuzzy.

As for the reception performance, I found it good enough, as one would expect it to be from a Class 2 device. The devices are able to transmit up to 7-8 meters in open space. Overall, this is a good product, but it could have been better. This is a product best suited for teenagers, but also for geeks who are after interesting gadgets.

Pros:

* Good audio quality

* Amazing amount of accessories

* Dual USB charging

Cons:

* Low battery life

* No AVRCP support

* Not compatible with Windcom's Bluetooth stack on Win2003SE

Overall rating: 7/10

Philips announced that it will help add an exciting and fun new dimension to staying in touch with family and friends by launching a breakthrough cordless home videophone designed for making live video calls via broadband Internet. This video-phone runs Linux.

The Vision:M is Creative's newest creation poised with an impressive set of features. The most notable feature is the video playback file support which easily handles MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV9, and Motion-JPEG. The video, as well as photos, play back on the Vision:M's bright 2.5'? 262k color 320 x 240 pixel screen.

A faster Wi-Fi standard appears to be about a year away, after a task group unanimously approved a proposal for an update to the 802.11g standard.

A trademark filing made by Apple, Inc. has set off another round of speculation that it plans to put out a mobile phone bearing its own brand. After the company trademarked the term "Mobile Me," some were quick to point out that the filing included possible uses that would allow it to cover a phone with digital music capabilities.

Engadget has two great articles (Part I & Part II) on Digital Television (mobile and normal). However, if all these new standards and acronyms were not enough, Sprint is trying to push one more on us.

ANYCOM sent us in two of their newest Bluetooth products for a review: the "Headset HS-890" and the "Adapter USB-200". Read more for a complete introduction of the gadgets.

Headset HS-890

This headset is the third generation of Anycom's bluetooth phone headsets. It comes in three colors: black, white and pink-ish. The retail box comes either with a car charger, lanyard, USB cable or just an AC adapter, our version came only with the latter. The headset has a very elegant design and it looks very modern. I was surprised to see that it had a perfect fit on both my ear(s), something that was not so for the other similar products I have tried in the past. In addition to the perfect fit, the headset proved very light and comfortable, after a few minutes I had completely forgotten I was wearing it!

The ANYCOM Blue Headset HS-890 supports both the Headset and the Handsfree profiles and it worked without any problems with both the phones I tried it with. Incoming sound was crystal clear while the sound I was transmitting from my side was equally good due to the intergrated noise cancellation feature coming from its DSP chip. The range was not too bad either, I was able to move around the room up to 6 meters away from the phone before it started breaking up. The device has 3 buttons: volume up/down while the Power On/Off button also does call answered/end, redial and mute. For some special phones there is also support for auto-answering, Voice Dialing and Last-Number-Redial. It's very easy to locate the correct buttons while wearing the device.

Overall, this is a great headset, maybe one of the best on the market. However, battery life could have been better. Just 5 hours of talk time and 140 hours of stand-by is a bit too low.

Rating: 9/10

Blue USB Adapter USB-200 (2.0)

You might ask why review a Bluetooth USB adapter as there are so many of these out there. Well, this one is special. Not only is a Bluetooth 2.0 version, but it also supports the Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) which allows for file transfering between Bluetooth devices at hundrends of kilobytes per second. Secondly, this adapter comes with the latest Broadcom software which has a lot of useful profiles in it: GAP, SDP, SPP, DUN, LAP, FAX, ObexFT, ObjectPush, HCRP, PAN, Headset, Sync, HID, Audio Gateway, BIP, BIP Camera, A2DP, AVRCP.

The only profiles missing are pretty much just VDP and BPP, but realistically only the BPP profile would have been useful at this time because there are no devices that support VDP yet. The BPP profile allows you to print to a printer via Bluetooth without the need of special drivers (the included HCRP printing profile requires special drivers for each printer).

Installation was very fast and went without an incident. In fact, no reboot was even needed. I tested the adapter with two A2DP/AVRCP headphones and worked perfectly, while sending files from and to my mobile phone also worked well. ActiveSync my PDA through Bluetooth also worked. Walking around the building never disrupted the connection and it seems that the 60-meter (200ft) range is for real.

Overall, this is a great little gadget. In any case, don't even think staying put with your existing Bluetooth 1.1 or 1.2 usb adapters! Speed, range, power consumption and profile support will obsolete them soon enough. If you need more range get the USB-250 model from Anycom (120 meters, 400ft), or if 200ft is enough for you, get the reviewed USB-200 one.

Rating: 9/10

Opera 8.5 Pocket PC beta version is based on the same core as the Opera 8.5 desktop browser and brings the full internet to mobile Pocket PCs. The version is available for both WM 2003 and WM 5.0.

Looks like SE-World already landed some pics of what's supposedly the "k800i," or what we saw earlier today as the "Wilma." Not that we have any additional information, but you know we'll keep you posted.