Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Surveys like this are always very interesting as they show the real truths behind the reliability of products, not just the output of the company’s marketing department.  In this case, SquareTrade, a research group, have taken it open themselves to tackle smart phones and to see their reliability (or lack thereof, as the case may be) over the first year of purchase.  And what better to use than 15,000 handsets consisting of BlackBerrys, iPhones and Treos.

As my not-so-inconspicuous title suggests, the Treo performed poorly, in fact, surprisingly poorly!  After one year 5.6% of all iPhones malfunctioned, followed by a sizable jump to 12% for the BlackBerry and a massive 16% of Treos.  This is incredibly worrying if you have just a bought a Treo, but comforting if you have selected the iPhone!

Read the full details after the break.

MORE »

There is a new sheriff in town and it’s name is iPhone.  This year, according the JD Powers the top dog spot goes to Apple’s phone, leaving RIM to finish in the #2 spot.  As you can see from the above graph, Apple’s entry was not included in last year (the survey’s inaugural year).  The graph shows some interesting items.

Find out what after the break.

MORE »

In the hostile world of today it is good to know that anything you say, or type, is safe from the prying eyes of family member’s, government organizations or even just a nosy person of the street. However, unfortunately, that is not always the case. A recent News.com survey into privacy revealed some pretty interesting results, the most notable of which is that AOL AIM is the most secure with no logs and secure logging-in and secure conversations, and Facebook Chat is the worst as they refused to answer lots of questions and also have an insecure log-in and insecure conversations.

One of the questions asked was “Have you ever received a subpoena, court order or other law enforcement request asking you to perform a live interception or wiretap, meaning the contents of your users’ communications would be instantly forwarded to law enforcement?“

MORE »

Here we go again: a new survey about security and devices that is brought to you by a company with a vested interest in providing companies security for their devices. Nevertheless, it’s probably true that if you’re using a Blackberry cell phone, Windows Mobile phone or other smartphone for your work, you’re not using the same kinds of password protection you have for your company laptop.

MORE »

Results of the study conducted by comScore shows that the number of U.S. Internet users accessing the web via mobile broadband increased by 154% in Q4 of 2007 as against the same period in 2006. Mobile internet is predominantly used in the work setting rather for domestic use.

The comScore report looked into the usage and characteristics of mobile broadband users from data collected by the research from Internet access using mobile broadband internet service providers (ISPs). This type of internet access is done using mobile phones subscribed through cellular networks and connected to a user’s PC. The study did not cover Internet access through Wi-Fi access which entirely a different thing from mobile broadband Internet access. Mobile broadband Internet usage is measured in terms of subscriber’s data charges from their respective cellular networks. The study also showed that Verizon and Sprint cellular network providers accounted for majority of the mobile broadband market.

MORE »