This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.
Last week, I got an LG Chocolate Touch in the mail to review. You’ve probably seen a commercial for it featuring musical artist, Ciara. The commercials have really been pushing the sound quality of this phone, so I decided to make that the focus of my review while still touching on everything else you look at in a phone.
Sound Quality Worth Bragging About
Fresh out of the box, my objective was to get my own music onto the phone. I plugged it in and in no time, I was moving over music. With a microSD card, there was plenty of space, so I moved over a bunch of music to test with. Honestly, LG makes some nice hardware, but I didn’t expect a lot in the way of audio quality from a cell phone. Somehow, though, they managed to get really clean sound and despite my expectations, I could tell the difference in audio clarity between the Chocolate Touch and other phones. My iPhone, for example, has pretty good audio for listening to music through my headphones, but the music playing through my LG seemed to have more depth to it.
More Music Features
Like most music players, the one in the LG lets you poke around for an artist, album or track and has all the standard functions, but it goes beyond that. LG wants people to know this is a phone with music on its mind, so they included a Dolby Mobile equalizer with a handful of presets as well as the option of a manual equalizer. Choosing Bass Boost and then switching to Voice Boost, I could hear a clear change and Voice Boost made my first test song sound a lot better than without it. They also added Rhythmical Beat (the phone vibrates to the beat), Visual Effect (some nice background movement) and Join the Band. Join the Band is a pretty unique feature I haven’t seen before. You can choose between a drum set and a scrolling keyboard to play music along with the currently playing track. When I tried it, it didn’t sound too great because I can’t hold a beat, but if you’re more musically inclined, this is a cool way to remix while you listen. Either way, it was a lot of fun to play along and be a part of the music.
Your music can be managed, too. The added ability to create and manage music library and playlists is a nice step up from the standard player functionality. The Chocolate Touch also kept with the originality by adding an FM tuner with Verizon’s song identification software. I think more phones should offer this and was glad to see it included.
Touch Screen, Design, and Usability
Opening the box, I found a phone oozing style. The red pillow it was on felt like a red carpet. The phone, itself is incredibly good looking with various shaped buttons and a smoky-steel exterior. A little smaller than an iPhone, it feels comfortable in your hand and all the buttons are in convenient places. The back plate is an extension of the rock-star look LG was aiming for (and nailed). It looks like someone spilled gray paint on it, but in a good way, and just in case gray isn’t your color, they threw in a purple back plate as well. Finally, the thing is almost soft, which is kind of calming.
The touch screen required more force than I’m used to or would prefer to make anything happen. Re-calibrating seemed to help a little, but I still had to work just a little harder to select things. That said, the interface seems to be designed to minimize the amount of poking at the screen that would need to be done in order to get to what you want. Beneath the back plate and under the battery was the microSD. I prefer it in a more accessible location, but that’s at the risk of it popping out and getting lost.
This phone also comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera. The camera software is adaptive to the photo being taken and will adjust for too little or too much light. I liked that because I could get a photo of my monitor and it adjusted to be perfectly readable.
Conclusion
The LG Chocolate Touch is a wonderful touch screen phone with some incredible features if your music is important to you while on the go. Just the design and the music features would be enough to help me get used to the touch screen and for the price, it’s a really good alternative to other phones that are battling to unseat the iPhone.
As 2009 is nearing its end I’ve been looking back and thinking about all the cool stuff I’ve come across in the last year. The stuff that sticks out the most is the tech videos showing new concepts and products or just cool new ways to use existing technology. I’ve put together ten of my favorites, but they are, by no means the ten best videos out there. If I missed anything, please feel free to share in the comments.
TED – Sixth Sense Technology
This is a great video showing real examples of new technology that puts information in front of you as you need it. Very cool stuff!
PlayStation 3 – High-Resolution Image Enlargement Technology
I was fascinated about this technology when I saw it used in The Rosetta Project months ago, and I’m still excited by it.
TED : Wireless Electricity
We’ve been getting closer and closer to the day when we can just come home and throw our cell phone on the table and it’ll just start charging without the need for all those cables.
Liquidware Illuminato X Machina
I love to see stuff like this where the machines become more aware of their state and are then able to interact appropriately with other machines near by.
‘Tron: Legacy’ Trailer HD (vfx test footage)
If you’re old enough to remember it, Tron was a great geeky movie well ahead of its time and the remake has techies like me anxious. Check out some visual FX test footage.
Augmented Reality Business Card
Since this video (and a little before it), a lot has happened with Augmented Reality and we’re even seeing it pop up in iPhone and Android apps now. Still, this is a great example of its use.
TweenBots
This was an interesting social experiment in which little robots were set free in New York and people helped them find their way.
TED: David Merrill Demos Siftables
First Flight of the Terrafugia Transition (flying car)
The blogosphere was abuzz when this video hit the web. It’s a car that converts into a plane to fly and then back into a car again.
ArcAttack performs the Dr. Who Theme on Twin Tesla Coils
I’m not a big Dr. Who geek, but I loved this anyway.
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Springpad. All opinions are 100% mine.
Yesterday, I came across yet another social media site, but it’s more like a portal or maybe it’s a social media portal.. with apps… and a Digg-like ranking system.
What is Springpad?
Springpad was built to “help you get things done and share your knowledge”. From an end user view point, it’s a social media portal with built-in applications and data management. Really, though, I think this site becomes what you need depending on how you use it but the same flexibility that makes this site so full-featured also requires a small amount of experimentation if you want to get the most from it.
Features
For the most part, use of the site involves sharing, which is why I call it a social media portal. It utilizes a system in which you add something and people who also like it can “Spring” it up. What makes this site unique is that you enter specific types of items rather than just a link to something. Some things that can be entered are albums, movies, books, products, restaurants, recipes, etc. Anything you add can be locked down as private, left public, or shared via other social media like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. Some other things that can be added that I didn’t expect are lists, tables (data), files, alarms, lists, and coupons. Throw everything in your calendar, add a recipe and then shop from the shopping list it creates for you, or just share thoughts on you favorite restaurant, movie, or wine. Most stuff you’d want to share is covered. The easiest way to add an item if you’re already staring at it on a remote site is to click the Springpad Clipper browser button. If, for example, you happen to be viewing a funny video on YouTube, just hit the Spring It! button and a dialog pops up to allow for the addition of this video to your feed.
Besides collecting, Springpad has many apps to help you plan for the Holidays like a budget tracker, a gift wish-list app, and a party planner. You can also easily keep track of who sent you Christmas cards.
Christmas cards haven’t been all that hard to manage on my own, but the budget tracker, gift wish, and party planner are useful additions.
Open Development
What’s better than full-featured? Open (and easy) development.
Start with the Notebook App. You can add your own tabs & choose what types of items are on each tab. Also, you can add a Filter Box & change between expanded & collapsed views. Just click on the wrench to find most of these settings. Soon, we will allow users to publish their Apps to the public directory – stay tuned!
This is a feature of the site I really want to play around with more as I continue to use the site and explore.
What’s missing
When I signed up, I wasn’t asked for a username. I was able to later change my username from my settings panel, but I think this should be offered up front. The only other concern I had was that this site has so many options that I could imagine it becoming overwhelming if to some people. It is pretty intuitive, but there’s so much to take in. If you get overwhelmed with all the features, just pick one for the day and try the next one tomorrow.
Conclusions
Despite having to spend a little time to learn how some of it worked, I had my Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook accounts dialed in within about a minute and the user experience is about as smooth as can be with this many features. It’s another player in a crowded game, but Springpad brought its fastball and came to play. In my current interaction with the site, it seems like it needs more people playing along, still, to offer the kind of value that convinces people to keep it as their homepage, but I don’t think I’ll have to wait to long to see that happen. Get your free Springpad here.. When you sign up, add me.
In September, I posted an article about Secrets, Hints, Tips, and Tricks to Succeed in FarmVille on Facebook. Having only played the now amazingly popular Facebook farming game for less than two weeks, I had already gathered lots of helpful tips. I’ve been asked so many times for more tips that I thought it was time for Part 2.
Get More Eggs And Other Special Items
Even if you’ve never used Twitter before, I’m sure you’re aware of what it is by now. Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, you should grab a Twitter client because it’s very useful in helping you snatch up those coveted lost animals and chicken eggs. Chicken eggs go especially fast because they hatch to reveal gold, brown, black, and white chickens as well as other cool stuff like hot tubs, pink flamingos, or even fuel. The problem is that people grab lost animals and eggs so fast you almost have to be on Facebook all day for a chance at one. I have to work all day, but I have a secret weapon. I use a program called TweetDeck for my Twitter accounts, but I also added Facebook, and that includes all those freebies that go by. I keep it minimized while I work or browse the web and when updates are found, it pops up a little notification with a preview. If I see an egg, I just click on it and it opens in a new tab in FireFox while I continue to work. More often than not, if eggs are made available by one of my FarmVille friends, I’ll get one, and I barely have to be on Facebook at all during the day.
This works almost as well with another program called Seesmic, which I use at home. As you can see in the image above, I have Seesmic in single-column mode, just showing Facebook. This way, it takes up a small portion of the screen, leaving the rest for what I’m working on. You may notice that while I was starting this very article, I snagged an egg and some free coins.
Get More Out Of Your Chicken Coops
Generally, you’ll wait a day for a chicken to lay an egg. This means you’ll wait about a day for a coop to be ready to harvest. You can, however, speed up the process. Drop in a chicken that is already ready to harvest. Make sure the coop is then ready to harvest. Now drop in 19 more chickens that are not ready to harvest and then harvest the coop. Empty your coop and do it again and again. It’s a lot of work, but your friends will love all the eggs produced.
Get Multiple Chicken Coops
So many FarmVille players have been asking, “How do I get multiple chicken coops in FarmVille?” and the answer is pretty simple, actually. First, if you have a chicken coop, move all your chickens out of it and then sell it. Now, with no coops on your farm, take advantage of one of the tools mentioned above to snatch up eggs. You’ll get a chicken coop every time because FarmVille doesn’t see one on your farm. Don’t hit OK on the page that gives you the coop. Just keep collecting them until your gift box is full. I got 14 of them before I decided to stop (not enough room on my farm). When you’ve decided you have enough coops, just start placing them on your farm from the gift box and filling them with chickens to hatch eggs.
Level Up Faster
Sometimes the only thing holding you back from the next crop in the marketplace is your Level. Often, I would harvest my whole farm of crops and be wishing I could buy the next crop, but not having the XP to level up and not wanting to wait a day for the next harvest to get those needed XP. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait. I noticed all the XP floating around for sale in the marketplace.
While you can’t just buy XP, you can buy items that give you a lot of XP. Take a look at the image above. My favorite is the windmill, because it gives me 1,000 XP and takes up hardly any room on my farm. It’s not cheap, but if you don’t want to wait, this is a good way to level up past your friends while they wonder how you did it.
Make More Money
Now that I’ve just told you a sure-fire way to blow through a lot of your coins, I’m sure you’d love to find out how to get more of those coins back faster. The fastest way to get coins is typically by just farming the more expensive crops. Pay attention to the harvest times and plant according to your ability to later harvest before anything withers. Remember, every crop that withers is just money (and time) down the drain, so don’t plant strawberries (4 hours) and then go out all night.
You can also make more money with gifts. The more friends you have that play FarmVille, the more gifts you end up with. I get easily 100 gifts a day and have no room for all of them, but I certainly won’t turn them down. Now that FarmVille has the “Sell All” feature in your gift box, you can just pick the items you want and put them on your farm and then just “Sell All” the rest. A lot of times, it’s an easy 6,000+ coins per day.
Finally, celebrate the achievements of friends and use TweetDeck or Seesmic to celebrate every achievement. You’ll get 50 to 500 coins each time and that adds up. The achievements of others often leave me with an extra 10,000 or so coins a day.
Get The Real Deal
You may have noticed a lot of pictures of eggs or gifts popping up on your wall, in friends’ updates, or with your regular FarmVille gift request notifications. Unfortunately, many of these are worthless in as much as they can’t be used in the game at all. While they may be fun to pass back and forth, they won’t contribute to your FarmVille play at all. Personally, I ignore all of them.
Take A Break Once In A While
Hi. My name is Joe and I’m an addict. No, really. This game is a lot of fun, but you can get burned out on it if you play too much. Once in a while, plant a three+ day crop and then just don’t log in for a couple days. And even more important to note is the opportunities for a break that are all but forced on you. Like many fast-growing games, FarmVille has its bugs. When you see people complaining that it wiped out their friends or you try to get the game to come up and it won’t, just find something else to do for a while. When you come back, you’ll be far less frustrated than others and will have more fun.
Experiment
FarmVille is software and software is prone to glitches. The methods to get multiple coops or generate eggs faster are based on glitches that someone found through experimentation. Drag a cow to a neighbor’s farm. Pet your horse every day for a week. Just try doing something in a different way and see if something new happens. If you find out a new tip, be sure to come back and post it here.
Please help your FarmVille neighbors by letting them know about this post with the Facebook share button below. It only takes a second.
