Sick of the small mousepad on your new netbook? Wish you could sit back and watch Hulu or browse the web from the couch with your computer connected to an HDTV? Do you have an Android powered phone? If you answered yes to these questions then Gmote is exactly what you need.

Gmote is a very handy app available on the Android Marketplace which offers several cool features including the ability to use your phone as a wireless trackpad, remote control your computer and stream music to your phone.

Once you’ve set up the small Gmote server on your computer you can connect over WiFi, or even on cellular connection, and turn your Android phone into a wireless mousepad. On top of almost tripling the trackpad space on my netbook, Gmote includes a button to pull up your onscreen keyboard for easy text entry. Standard trackpad functions including left click, right click and scrolling are also including making it easy to navigate your entire computer from your phone.

On top of enjoying the extra trackpad space that Gmote provides it also makes a handy remote control for PowerPoint presentations. Gmote is also useful for pulling up Hulu on an out of reach notebookto enjoy The Daily Show without getting up.

Gmote also features a remote control application which lets you play audio and video files in VLC or Windows Media Player on your PC. You can select files to play by browsing your computer’s hard drive on your phone. Additionally you can stream music to your Android phone giving you access to your entire music catalog.

Gmote is a free application, though there is a donation version, and is available on the Android Marketplace. It works with Windows and Linux computers and performed great in Windows 7 in my testing. If you have trouble connecting to the server or want to learn more about Gmote you can ask for support at the developer’s website. If you have the Barcode Scanner App installed on your Android you can scan the image to the right and it will prompt you to download Gmote.

Turn Your Android Phone Into a Mousepad and Remote is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook! Things are really heating up for the social network especially on the news that it acquired Friendfeed which could provide it a leg up on its competitor Twitter. Why am I starting out a phone review with a news update for Facebook? Well because the Sony Ericsson W518a, which runs on AT&T’s network, is all but called a Facebook phone.

On top of its standard duties as a cell phone the W518a offers access to Facebook that most phones can’t touch, especially $50 clamshell phones. Users of the W518a can enable a Facebook App which sits on the phones home screen and shows a constantly refreshing stream of Facebook status updates.

The app cycles through updates on its own in standby mode or you can control the flow by pressing Facebook button and using the d-pad or flicking your wrist thanks to the phone’s accelerometer. If you want to move one status update over you can flick your wrist and if you want to scroll through several you can just hold the phone at a tilt. One reason I’m so fond of the tilt to scroll feature is that the d-pad on the w815a is very flat and takes a while to get used to. For the first few days I found myself opening the dialer or hitting end rather than switching between status updates. While this got better with time if you have trouble distinguishing the edges of other keys you may want to get a hands on with the phone first or rely on the wrist flick method of navigating.

Since the phone is so heavily focused on Facebook, I feel obligated to comment on the Facebook App. While it does a great job of keeping you up to date with what your friends are doing; when it comes to commenting on their status it isn’t very intuitive. While you’d expect that when you’re viewing a status update that you could click on it and reply that’s not the case. Clicking the center button takes you to an optimized version of your News Feed, from which you can again find the status then click on it to be taken to the user’s page where you can comment or write on their wall. This works, but I had expected a more polished way to reply to others. Thankfully the ability to update your status is straightforward and very easy to do. Perhaps we’ll see this same ease come to the commenting portion of the app in the near future as Facebook tries to compete with the conversations taking place on Twitter.

Camera: The image quality is OK in well lit situations but like most camera phones has a tough time in very low light environments. The phone does feature a Photo Fix” option which greatly improves most shots, even those taken in low light, though you’ll want your regular camera for anything bigger than a 4×6 taken indoors.

The picture quality is perfect for Facebook though, which is really what this phone’s about. After you take a picture with the built in 3.2 MP camera you choose send just like you would on any other phone, but now you’ll see an option for Facebook right above the MMS and website options.

Phone body: The W518a is a sleek clamshell style phone with an attractive grey exterior and a smooth dark metal finish on the keys. The rest of the keypad is easy to use, as all keys except the d-pad have a raised area to let you know where they are.

Music: The phone also features external music controls for songs that can be downloaded from Napster and through the Shop Music” link on the phone. I was very impressed by the sound quality and the volume of music that came out of this small phone. The music, which comes out of a small slit on the back of the phone, easily filled a large room even over casual conversation without distorting. The only downside I found here was that the phone does not have a headphone jack, leaving you to rely on Bluetooth headphones, which connect over A2DP, to give you a private listening experience.

Pros:

• Facebook friendly.
• Loud ringer and music capabilities.
• Small size.
• $50 cost.

Cons:

• No headphone jack.
• No raised edges on D-pad.
• Replying to facebook comments is harder than it should be.

Conclusion: By combining an instant on Facebook presence with a solid media player and a $50 price tag this is a perfect fit for Facebook Junkies on a budget. Right now you stand the chance to score a free phone as well as many other prizes by using the AT&T Share App on Facebook. If you complete missions like; uploading a summer concert photo, writing a blog post or telling AT&T what your ideal phone would be you stand the chance to win, a Sony Ericsson phone, AT&T gift cards and other prizes.

Sony Ericsson W518a: Meet AT&T’s New Facebook Phone is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

I had the pleasure of connecting with Caroline from a company called Ipevo. Caroline gave me the quick rundown on a number of their current products as well as some great new ones like the wi-fi and widget enabled Kaleido R7 digital picture frame  coming in March. Some other interesting items for notebook users are the USB powered TR-10 portable conferencing phone, PoV web camera, and a number of Skype enabled handsets. I am currently reviewing the TR-10 and hope to have a video review sometime in the future. Ipevo has a solid offering of products that are nicely designed and fairly priced in my opinion. Take a look at the video below and see for yourself. 

Ipevo creates “experience over IP” – Upcoming Products (w/video) is a post by Adam Helweh from Notebooks.com.

T-Mobile’s the first to introduce a phone powered by Google’s open-source Android operating system. The T-Mobile G1, which has a touchscreen display and a full QWERTY keyboard, features several Google applications included Google Maps with Street View and YouTube.

The G1 will cost $179 with a 2-year contract and be available on October 22.

The T-Mobile G1′s MicroSD card can be loaded with music from Amazon’s MP3 store. It only comes with a 1GB MicroSD card, but users can upgrade later.

Of course many people are comparing the G1 (and any other multimedia phone) to the iPhone. Harry McCracken, of Technologizer put together a chart comparing the G1 to the iPhone. Click on the below image to see the full details on his site.

T-Mobile G1, Android Phone Announced is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

Palm announced the Palm Centro will be available at Sprint stores for $99 starting October 14. Aimed at first-time smartphone buyers, the Centro is the company’s smallest smartphone yet. The Palm Centro will run on Sprint’s EVDO network to deliver web content, video and chat.

“Palm Centro has the power of a broadband smartphone at the price of a standard 12-key phone,” said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. “People looking to have all their contacts and calendar at the touch of a button, plus YouTube streaming videos and the Internet can now get it in a small, cool design with the trademark Palm ease of use. If you’re thinking about stepping up to a smartphone, the Palm Centro should be your choice.”
The Palm OS looks quite dated, especially compared to the iPhone’s slick interface, but I have to admit I do miss some of its features after switching. For only $99, smartphone newbies will be able to do a bunch of things I can’t do with my iPhone. The Centro has a native chat application (AIM, MSN Live and Yahoo!) and a camera that record video, two things that are sorely missing from the iPhone.

Palm Centro Coming to Sprint for $99 is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

JIN Display of Korea has announced it’ssuccessfully finished the development of an ultra small single LCD panel for digital projection. Notebooks and cell phone screen size may become a non-issue, since the projection screen could act as a larger auxiliary display.
The company’s CEO says mass production will begin in September, with production for mobile phone models kicking off in April ’07.

link

Built In Mobile Phone/Notebook LCD Projectors Coming Soon is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

Novatel’s X620 ExpressCard for notebooks is designed to run on Sprint and Verizon’s EVDO networks. A growing number of notebooks – from Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP and others – only have ExpressCard slots, and up until now, high-speed cellular has only come on phones and PC Cards.

link via Gearlog

First EVDO ExpressCard is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

HP will integrate Cingular’s BroadbandConnect into future HP business notebooks.HP is expected to be the first company to provide customers with global 3G capabilities when it expands its range of broadband wireless notebooks to integrate Cingular’s UMTS/HSDPA-based technology later this year. Customers will be able to enjoy wireless access to email, the Internet and business data both in the United States — either with BroadbandConnect or high-speed EDGE services — and abroad in more than 100 countries worldwide in which there are UMTS or GPRS/EDGE networks available. BroadbandConnect service is expected to be available in most major U.S. markets by the end of this year.

HP &Cingular to Offer Notebooks with Global 3G is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

One noise you necer want to hear coming from another guy’s cell phone.

Bad Ringtone is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.