Finally from Motorola’s family of Razr mobile phones comes the MotoRazr maxx Ve , an ultra thin mobile phone with improved MotoRazr visual aesthetics. Unlike its ruggedly designed predecessor V3x, the Motorola Razr maxx Ve comes in a more stylish and sophisticated design with a brightly colored external screen and touch-screen buttons. Unfortunately, the Razr maxx Ve’s touch-screen features is not akin to that of the iPhone. The Razr maxx Ve’s touch screen feature is used only for music playback functionality.

Speaking of music playability, the Razr Ve’s player is a bit on the downside with its tinny and tiny sound quality. The phone’s built-in speaker is located at the back of the phone which hampers direct audio transmission especially when taking a call. To fully enjoy the Razr maxx Ve’s full music functionality it would be best to use a Bluetooth stereo headphones or multimedia speakers.

The Razr maxx Ve is also equipped with a 2 megapixel camera with auto focus. The camera takes good average photos but may take five seconds for the phone’s viewfinder to activate it. It’s good for taking quick snapshots when a point and shoot digital camera is not available.

A common gripe among Motorola phones which have always been in any phones it released is the complicated and very user-unfriendly menu interface. Loyal users of Motorola mobile phones have been clamoring for a more user-friendly menu interface but Motorola has not heeded this clamor. It’s high time that Motorola work on this flaw to catch up with leading mobile company, Nokia which has mastered the art of making user-friendly phones.

So much for the Motorola Razr maxx Ve’s bad points and let’s move on to the good points. Aside from its sleek and stylish design with an ultra thin and solid housing, and dazzling LCD screen, the phone’s most notable feature is its internet browser. Fully accessible via a nifty shortcut key, the Razor maxx Ve’s mobile web browser is fast and displays sites similar to how these are displayed on a desktop screen. This complements the phone’s crisp and vibrant colored display that makes web browsing a pleasant experience even when under direct sunlight.

The MotoRazr maxx Ve is a decent mobile phone in its own class. Despite its kinks and flaw, it more than compensate for this with its great design and very useful mobile web browser.

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Search giant Yahoo is beefing up its mobile search presence more than anybody can think of. A few days ago it launched a new service that integrates the functionality of the highly successful web service, Yahoo Answers with its mobile search facility OneSearch. Yahoo answers provide answers to queries provided by Yahoo’s millions of members worldwide while OneSearch gives mobile users instant vital information right into Yahoo’s mobile web portal. Combining these two search interfaces in one useful mobile web portal certainly results in a powerful mobile search facility.

So, when you are stuck somewhere in an unfamiliar place and don’t know where to go, you can simply access Yahoo’s OneSearch portal on your mobile phone and ask for directions on where’s the best place to stay or dine. Yahoo Answers and OneSearch will work together to come up with the most reliable and useful recommendation for you. As an added information to chew on, Yahoo’s OneSearch would even display relevant citations related to your search culled from Wikipedia’s vast information resources.

To get a better grip of how this interplay of Yahoo OneSearch and Answers work, take a look at the sample search results for the OneSearch query “2008 Summer Olympics?” The search result displays links to the Yahoo answers with an added Wikipedia link.

Aside from the improved mobile search, OneSearch also rolled out its flight information search which provides users with specific flight status such as arrivals and departures, delays, and gate assignments.

These improved mobile search capabilities are currently available in major countries aside from the United States.

With these new avenues of search technology, Yahoo may very well be on its way to reclaiming its pre-Google status as one of the web’s major player. That is, if Google won’t catch up with its own mobile web search technology.

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The Nokia 6110 is the mobile company’s cure to everyone’s navigation worries. While everyone else in the mobile manufacturing industry are busy thinking of upgrading their mobile product’s camera features, portability and connectivity, Nokia threaded a different path and decided to come up with its navigation phone - the masterpiece?, the Nokia 6110 navigator.

Before getting on to the navigation details of this sleek looking mobile masterpiece, it would be best to mention the phone’s feature-rich mobile capabilities. Like the other Nokia mobile phones in its series, the Nokia 6110 has 2.0 megapixel camera which is great for photos and videos, 3G capability for better online experience and expandable microSD slot for expandable storage, plus other standard mobile phone capabilities. Its mobile features are enough reasons to own this mobile goodness.

Now getting on to the heart of the Nokia 6110’s major offerings, the phone is equipped with a voice-guided GPS navigation system and preloaded with local maps of the country where it was bought from. If you don’t mind hearing the funny sounding text-to-message command voice of the 6110 navigation control, then you would definitely learn to like and love this mobile phone. The Nokia 6110 has the following major navigation features:

• Find your way by car or on foot: the Nokia 6110 Navigator has a built-in voice-guided 3D GPS navigation system and local maps pre-installed on the memory card
• Use turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation directly from your Nokia 6110 Navigator
• Access maps and location information quickly and easily with the dedicated Navigator key
• Download maps quickly and surf the web via high-speed 3.5G
• View maps, navigation guidance, and location information clearly on the 2.2″ QVGA TFT color screen
• Take snapshots of places you’ve been using the 2-megapixel camera with panoramic mode
• Keep your images crystal clear with the sliding lens protector
• Listen to your text messages and email read aloud to you by your phone with Message Reader, with quick access from the My Own keys

The 6110 is certainly a nifty mobile phone navigator that is both useful while traversing the urban jungle on foot or driving your way into the inner streets of the city were you are located.

Recently, Nokia teamed up with Renault car maker to come up with a co-branded Twingo Nokia car loaded with the 6110 navigator. So if you have the money to spare you might want to buy the Twingo car loaded with the 6110 or if not, buy the 6110 first, then save up for the Twingo Nokia car later.

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After 5 months in alpha and beta testing, VoIP leader Skype has released its 1.4 version for Linux, codenamed Panacea.

It provides superior voice quality compared with the 1.3 version plus numerous new features and bug fixes including:

• Chat toolbar with Add People, Send File(s) to Chat, History and Leave Chat buttons.
• Confirmation dialog for Leave Chat button.
• Drag-and-drop files to chat input box to send files to chat.
• Drag-and-drop files to individual contacts in chat or contact list to send files.
• Drag-and-drop users from contact list into chat input box to send contacts.
• Interface language choice in Options based on translation files available (restart required)
• Tooltips for emoticons in the chat window.

Bug fixes include:

• Add a minimum size to Send Contacts/Create Conference/Add Chat Members window.
• Don’t open two call windows when pressing enter on Call Ordinary Phones.
• Automatically rename incoming files if they already exist.
• Disable Emoticons button in Chat Windows when Emoticons have been disabled.

Complete details available in Skype website.

Despite these new developments, Skype’s parent company eBay admitted encountering some problems to make this service profitable and complement its online auction business.

Skype was acquired primarily to allow eBay sellers and buyers to communicate without incurring additional expenses, expand overseas market, and get a foothold in the communications market. However, Skype failed miserably to meet the expectations.

As a result, it had to write down the value of Skype by about 46 percent or $1.43 billion off its $3.1 billion acquisition cost in 2005. Moreover, Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis had stepped down due to this dismal performance.

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Welcome to the Phone-Guide. If you are looking for the old version of the site, rest assured that we’ll have it back up and working, with links from the new navigation.

We’ve added a “communications blog” that will be covering the following topics:

• Communications technology in general.
• Phones, wireless phones.
• Cellular/ mobile phones.
• Cellular plans.
• Mobile marketing.
• Mobile payments
• VoIP phones.
• VoIP technology.
• VoIP providers.
• VoIP plans.
• Calling cards.
• Callback plans.

There will be less emphasis on callback plans than before.

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