Coquette

Juicy Couture Pink Sidekick

I've been meaning to get myself a new phone for the year and decided to splurge and get myself a Pink Juicy Couture Sidekick II. I knew it would be useful for work when I need to shuffle around town but it also looked like a fun way to keep me connected. Sure all the celeb it gals have one from Paris Hilton to Jessica Alba so in a way I kinda resisted....until now. I didn't realize HOW MUCH I was going to love it.

I'm not so much a Juicy velour outfit kind of gal but I just like the fact that this phone/pda was just more fun and girly than all the other ones out there. I also don't really talk much on the phone besides "where are you?" or "I'll be home in 20 min" kind of thing. The phone comes with a earbud which I want to get used to using more.

I'm off to Macworld this afternoon to check out if there are any more girly tech goods I can share. So far I heard that Casauri has a booth and is selling goods for 50% off. I want to get a small pink zip pouch to protect my new toy.

Actual photos of my sidekick are here on my flickr.

Sending Out a Fashion SMS

If you are in England and find yourself in a fashion dilemma, all you have to do is send a text message from your cell phone to 81144, the Topshop Style Advisor, and you'll get a picture back of what you are looking for. "I need a perfect black dress" or "What kind of shirt can I wear with these jeans?" Not a bad idea to have a fashion expert on hand at your celly's every beck and call. You can request the store to hold an item (text HOLD), make an appointment with a style advisor (text STYLE), or just ask a question (text ADVICE).

Topshop is one of the leading mass retailers in England and sells hip clothes like H&M. I like to go to the Oxford Circus store when I'm in London for cheap trendy clothes or the essentials (tees and tanks). So far with this service there aren't many requests (a total of 4 which I've pictured above). If you are in London I'm curious for someone to try it out and see what kind of answers they get.

Sigh. If only we had this here in the States. Wouldn't it be cool if you were at Nordstrom's buying some cute shoes and could text message Banana Republic a couple blocks down if they had a dress to go with it? Pretty cool and interesting use of mobile technology.

Read more about it in the British Inquirer article [via picturephoning.com].

More DIY Cellphone Charms

I've posted up a new article on making cellphone charms up on the Make Blog. Its a follow up to my post this past summer here on Coquette.

Kris Nations and I had a lot of fun coming up with the charms. There are 3 you can make yourself, including this cute pink pom-pon/skull charm. Enjoy!

Plus d'Amour

Its nice to know that its not all just pretty pictures with the new Nokia L'Amour cell phones. I've gotten some great feedback from all of you on how much you love this phone from the posting last week. Now, T3 a UK based gadget magazine, has a great hands-on review with lots of photos.

I love the added surprise of the satin pouches with tassels that hold the phone like its own little special bag. (See I wasn't too far off with the Gatsby story.) The interface of the phone when turned on is so strikingly beautiful its hard to believe that interface design on most cell phones these days seem to be an afterthought (think Blackberry 7100 series and those childish clip art icons). Key quote of the review: "Elaborately patterned mirror surfaces, faux leather trim and mock wood finishes are the obvious standout features. But as horrid as these might sound, somehow Nokia has pulled it off, blending these materials with bizarrely elegant expertise." Oh la la! Hurry up and get this phone out to the States!

Thanks to my friend Eric for passing this along. :)

Ohhh L'Amour

If I lived in the 1920's and cell phones existed, I'd probably have one of these Art Deco inspired phones. The Nokia 7370 (again with the numbers) is the real beauty of the L'Amour Collection with its asian inspired engraved flowers and ivory-like shell and buttons. When closed it could almost be a vintage tin to hold hair pins and clips. I can imagine this phone in my beaded drawstring bag as I head over to West Egg to meet Gatsby at his grand party. The phone rings a Duke Ellington tune as I put it up to my short bobbed black hair.....

Well it seems Nokia is definitely on a roll here to get some feminine beauty into technology. I love this next step they took with delicate vintage style. The other 2 phones in the collection are the Nokia 7360 a candy bar style phone, and Nokia 7380, the thin sleek silver lipstick phone. These phones should be available in Q1 of 2006.

For more technical information on the phones, visit Phone Scoop and Engadget.

The New X2000 VZ P999999....

I really don't know what's up with all the numbers that mobile phones seem to have in their names as if having it a few digits off differentiates it. Why can't they make it easy like the way Stila names her lipsticks after famous celebs like Sofia (as in Coppola) and Natalie (as in Portman).

Ok I digress, but I am of course happy to hear a day later after switching back to my Sony Ericsson P900
n P900 that they have announced the launch of the P990. But I'm just not into the name. I typed in P990 into google and the first link that came out was a gun. Scared the bejesus out of me. Do marketing people over at Sony Ericsson know this? I really think we need more fun names like "cherry" or "peach" seems better, no? Calling them number after number is just plain lazy. Still aside from the bad name, the phone seems pretty powerful and pretty awesome. But don't get too excited....it's nowhere near here yet. The phone will be launching first in Europe in Q1 2006 o if you are planning any trips to London you can check them out and maybe buy one. But remember that special services the phones have probably won't be available here in the States because we are still unfortunately dependent on our mobile carriers. I actually bought my P900 back in London 2 years ago as an unlocked phone because it was unavailable here. It's a lot pricier but worth it sometimes when you want to have the latest and greatest. (Don't forget you're never limited to the phone your mobile carrier carries. You can always buy unlocked phones. I often browse the goods at Expansys UK.)

The coolest thing about the phone is the built in keyboard that is now part of the phone and not in the awkward flap where it was at in the P910a. Also the new phone will have a instant email capability much like the popular Blackberry. That could be a real winner.

For more pictures and information check out Engadget and Phone Scoop.

Candy Bars

Verizon just released one of its newest "must-have" multimedia phones, the LG VX9800. LG stands for "Life's Good" and even though this phone offers up a bevy of attributes that even I was excited for its release. But after careful consideration, if the motto is "Life's Good" then let me add that "Life Should Be Waaaay Cheaper".

This phone is what they call in techno-land, a "candy bar" shape. The casing opens up to reveal a full screen and full QWERTY keyboard, perfect for emailing, text messaging, taking pictures, and watching Verizon's V Cast Videos. One of the drawbacks is the actual thickness of the phone, not the actual size/height of it. I was over at Circuit City last weekend checking one out and I was trying to picture my daily life with this phone in my handbag. I was on the fence. Surprisingly the phone wasn't as heavy as I imagined. The keypad was nice and as a gal with small fingers, you could type letters easily without bumping into the next one. The model I was checking out wasn't activated so the sales guy let me watch the V Cast videos on his clam shell phone. I have to say I was pretty impressed at how fast the movies played over the mobile connection, but the reality was did I really want to pay 15 bucks extra for watching small clips? When was I ever going to really need to watch video? I sure don't travel as much as I used to and they only place they would make sense would be at the airport.

That said, the phone would be ideal if the price wasn't so high. LG is an almost generic no-name brand and Verizon is asking a $299 / 2 year contract or $399 / 1 year contract price for this phone. I know I don't want to commit myself to a 2 year contract when typically Verizon has the least of the hip mobile phones. And knowing myself, I never use the same mobile phone for more than a year. Plus think of all the extra costs with the $15 VCast or added $5 or $10 for text, pix, or video messaging. If you are in the need for a robust communication center phone, better to go with a Treo or Blackberry.

Some other options for you if are set on a candy bar style phone, try out the Nokia 9300. I played with one a couple weeks ago at the CTIA Wireless convention and it is significantly thinner and lighter than the LG VX9800. Besides, I have heard from cellular carriers that Nokia phones tend to have the best reception and sound quality.

As for me, today I decided to take a break from the fast-paced Blackberry life and went back to my trusty Sony Ericsson P900. I was tired of the poor sound reception and found that I really needed to talk on my mobile phone! Plus now I can have better ringtones. I'll use it until something better comes up! Bien Sur! ; )

1, 2 Step

Its never been easier to buy ringtones or wallpapers for your phone until now with Flux, a ringtone and wallpaper service brought to you by MTV Networks. The fresh/hip wallpaper designs and the array of top pop songs from Coldplay to Snoop Dogg, are easily searchable by type. You can preview each song by clicking on the "Preview" button without launching a pop up window or new page. Be sure to find out if your carrier supports this service. The cool thing is that whatever you purchase gets added onto your monthly mobile bill. So whatcha waiting for?

CTIA Wireless Conference in SF

Today is the last day for the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2005 Conference at the Moscone West here in San Francisco. It was definitely a busy conference filled with men in suits all around hoping to make their next big deal. "Lets do lunch!" "Let's do some biz together!" "Let's do..." Oh nevermind. For me, I was in my tech element but maybe from the outside I looked too "Forever 21" as I smacked my new Chanel lip gloss and went basically incognito into the exhibit floor. It was strange and yet also exhilarating to browse around low-key and only talk if I really really wanted to ask a question.

All the photos from the conference are here => flickr photos .
(Note: I tried to take good pics but sometimes it was hard because it was crowded and my hands got a little shaky -- hence some photos may be a bit blurred. I apologize.)

The Nokia booth was great. I got some Nokia mints and I finally got to take a look at the N90 close up and I still like it. (Sorry Eric!) It was lighter than I expected and the resolution on the screen was super clear. It is definitely more of camera/video recorder that happens to have a mobile phone rather than a full scale phone. I still love my Blackberry because of its email access but I have problems actually talking on the phone. Sometimes I can hardly hear someone. I overheard at the Blackberry booth a press man talking about how he can't seem to have good connections to make calls. Of course I chimed in and agreed. The Blackberry woman there said that it could be our coverage here in SF because she had heard of the problem but that she lived in Canada. Apparently it has to do with the physical phone and how it has to make all these data connections. Nevertheless, I'm on the lookout for something, but not in a huge rush.

I saw the new Motorola Treo phone. It was very light and very thin. I was around all these "important" looking men who were talking about it so I heard that it is coming out soon, although I couldn't get a word in edge-wise to ask when it was coming out or through which carrier. At least they let me hold it and take some pictures.

A company called Qool was there from Singapore. They were showing off their new Pocket PC phone and I was really impressed with the design of it. It had a funky push button interface and you could flip it up and access the PDA of the phone. It had a plastic level that you could actually detach the flap if you wanted to. Plus it was one of the lightest Pocket PC's I have ever held.

Overall, there wasn't much new stuff to see and it was a bit overrated. I didn't see anything interesting or new in mobile entertainment either. What I came away with is that mobile phones are starting to get lighter as they do more. Which is a good thing.

The final highlight was to see my longtime friend Andy of Orange Photography shout my name as he was taking pictures at the VeriSign booth. He's here with frog man, the VeriSign mascot, where he was assigned to take pictures of conference attendees with the kooky-lookin' amphibian. Apparently this frog is big time in the UK. So I thought what the hell, and took a picture with him. In a sea of conference dudes, it was nice to see a familiar face even if it was next to a guy in a frog suit.

Celebrity-Way Calling

Oh Jude. Oh Sienna...Just about the most hilarious post I have seen in a while. Celebrity-Way Calling gives us a cheeky peek into celebrity mobile phone conversations. (You can also see the types of mobile phones used. Nerd, over and out.)