Casio

The clamshell phone is ruggedized to meet military specification 810 standards which means you don’t have to worry about your camera phone when you are enjoying the rain in the lawn or if you happen to accidentally drop it in your bath tub as it is water resistive for about 1m. It is built to with stand humidity, salt-fog, shock, vibration, dust, solar radiation, altitude, and low and high temperature storages.

It features a 5.1 MP auto focus digital camera on its back and a high end mobile phone on the other side. Talking about its camera, it supports 3X optical zoom, auto focus, a bright flash light and high quality video recording and can take photos in seven different resolutions in 262,000 color support.

It has all the features of a good digital camera like image stabilizer, a dedicated camera key, 15 best shot modes, white balance, macro mode, brightness, a self-timer, an optional shutter sound and many more. You can activate the camera in the normal mode or you can flip and fold the screen to turn it into a digital camera and all the buttons on the side will turn into camera controls.

The 2.3” rotating TFT screen of the phone displays 65K colors at a resolution of 240×320 pixels. When you fold the screen to its back, above the Verizon brand name, is a glossy OLED display that shows the battery life, clock time, and signal strength, text caller ID during a call and any new messages or missed calls if you have. It also displays the current song details when the audio player is active.

It has an 8GB external memory that slips into the microSD port. The microSD port and the headset port are tightly rubber-sealed. You can listen to the music on a Bluetooth stereo headset or its crystal clear speaker in mp3, AAC, wma formats from its music player or even watch your favorite videos on its built in video player.

It is GPS Enabled/E911 enabled, provides instant access to IM services and comes with a HTML browser that supports WAP 2.0, so you are at liberty to view the web pages in full size or the scaled down mobile versions.

You may also like using the Verizon’s wide range of broadband services that include V Cast video , V Cast Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Music, VZ Navigator(SM)-capable, Visual Voice Mail and a few others and purchase or download videos wirelessly from the web.

The Casio Exilim C721 requires a dock for charging and synchronizing and renders a talk time of 3.8 hrs and a battery stand-by time of up to 22.5 days. It is available in Black and Champagne colors for $279.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate on a two year customer license agreement. Services like VZ Navigator, Visual Voice Mail and a few others are available on demand for a few extra bucks.

Visit a Verizon Wirless Communications Store nearby or buy it online at www.verizonwireless.com

Watch the Cnet video review of the Casio Exilim C721.

The video talks about stuff like Grand Central services, Voice to text, several test videos, fake callback, etc..

The video has no mention of Palm Pre as this presentation happened in December, 2008, otherwise I am sure we would have heard quite a bit about it.

Check out the following video.. Interesting stuff..

Japanese have always come up with the most innovative and distinctive product designs. I have  not only been great fan of Japanese technology and product but I find their culture equally fascinating.

The phone we are discussing in this article is designed by KDDI and which is a multifunctional to the extent we have never seen before.

This phone has everything from a Projector to a Game Controller to Printer. Yes, you heard that right, the phone is capable of printing pictures, etc..

Phone is called PLY, name and design of the phone is based on Plywood. The phone has a layered design just like a Plywood, each layer has its own functionality. If one layer opens up to project an image, the other opens up to print a picture or become a game controller.

The phone is still in the concept stage but going by the gadgets that have come out of Japanese designs, I don’t see a problem with this concept being transformed into a fully functional product.

Visit to see PLY in action.

Scroll down to see what the phone looks like.

For the benefit of the readers, iPhone is a popular mobile phone from Apple inc. There have been iPhone being sold in India in the black market with cracked software. However, with Bharti Airtel being the first one to launch the iphone in India, flood gates will soon open with other service providers getting into act soon.