Mobile phone industry news and phone review sites
What's This?

GSMArena

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.gsmarena.com/ (xhtml-mp)

One of the top mobile technology news sites. The mobile edition includes the three most popular features of the desktop site,  latest mobile news, handset reviews and a comprehensive database of mobile phone specifications.


What's This?

Mobile News - ZDNet

Content: *****  Usability: XXXX
m.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news (xhtml-mp)

ZDNet Mobile News Blog

James Kendrick is one of my favorite mobile tech bloggers. He's also one of the first. As his blog jkOnTheRun's tagline used to say, he's been "using mobile devices since they weighed 30 pounds". James covers just about every significant mobile gadget and software release with insightful reviews and analysis and wraps up the week's top mobile news every Friday in a  'Mobile Tech Manor' post.

After a stint with the GigaOm network's family of tech blogs, James has moved to ZDNet writing under the "Mobile News Blog" banner and continuing his weekly summary, now titled "Mobile News Manor".

A nice plus of the move to ZDNet is that the blog gains a mobile formatted version, something the GigaOm blogs lack. The single column mobile version retains all the text and image content of the desktop version.


What's This?

Boy Genius Report

Content: *****  Usability: XXX
www.boygeniusreport.com (HTML5)
Boy Genius Report MobileThe anonymous blogger known as the "Boy Genius" or BG is famous for publishing scoops about future gadgets and mobile products. A lot of  BG's scoops involve leaked documents, photos and sometimes complete reviews of devices the BG has somehow managed to get his hands on months before there official release. Among the more notable BG scoops, he was the first to reveal the Blackberry Pearl with pictures and video before anyone had so much published a rumor about a trackball equipped Blackberry.  Then there was the BG's leak of the  Blackberry Clamshell, which Seeking Alpha claimed caused Blackberry's stock price to jump 5%.  Recently, BG published a  full review of the Nokia E71 with pictures and video three weeks before the phone was even announced.  I especially enjoyed BG's leaks of  Verizon's "iPhone 3G Myths" internal sales document and AT&T's counterpoint telling sales folks how to pitch the iPhone's superiority over Verizon's Blackberry Storm.  Great stuff, I don't know how the BG does it but I can't get enough of it.

There are a lot of things I don't know about the BG like what's his name?, is he really a minor?, where does he get his information?  Add one more, until yesterday, I didn't realize that there was a mobile web version of the Boy Genius Report. When I was looking for Android Reviews I happened to hit the BG's site with Firefox's User Agent Switcher Extension set to impersonate some handset and there it was, Boy Genius Mobile.  It was launched Sept. 14th according to this BG post and uses a modified version of Alex King's WordPress Mobile Edition. Browser detection is used to deliver a mobile formatted version to recognized handsets visiting any page on the boygeniusreport.com domain.  You can force the mobile version in a desktop browser or unrecognized mobile by going to boygeniusreport.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?ak_action=accept_mobile.

The Alex King plugin delivers a "PDA" formatted rather than a full mobile site.  There's no pagination and images aren't re-sized so page size can get pretty large, over 100 KB including images.  That's not a problem for smartphones including Blackberries or even modern feature phones with one of the better mobile browsers (Nokia, Obigo or Netfront).  But anyone sporting a device with a Motorola MIB or Openwave browser will definetely encounter some "out of memory errors" browsing BGR Mobile.  If that happens to you, I highly recommend using Opera Mini if possible.  If you can't use Mini  you are probably on Verizon or another BREW carrier and you have my sympathy.  Try using a transcoder like Google's GWT, Mowser or Skweezer to cut BGR Mobile down to size.
What's This?

Ubergizmo

Content: ****  Usability: XXX
www.ubergizmo.com/ (HTML5)

Mobile edition of a blog featuring tech gadget product announcements and reviews.


08-Aug-2009 Ubergizmo's own mobile site appears to be no more.  Use the link above for a mobilised version on Ubergizmo by Mippin.

20-Apr-2011 www.ubergizmo.com is now using WPTouch to serve a mobile obtimized page to iOS, Android and  WebOS only. Less capable phones get the desktop version!! If that doesn't work for you there is a low bandwidth version available from Mippin at mippin.com/mip/prev/list.jsp?&id=327&cat=Tech


What's This?

GottaBeMobile

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.gottabemobile.com/ (xhtml-mp)

A news and review site covering Tablets, mobile phones and software.

 


What's This?

Pocketnow

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.pocketnow.com/ (xhtml-mp)

PocketNow

Online since 2000, Pocketnow is one of the oldest mobile news sites. Originally focused on Windows Mobile, today's Pocketnow covers all the smartphone platforms with an emphasis on Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone. Frequently updtaed with the latest reviews, news and videos.


What's This?

MobileBurn

Content: ****  Usability: XX
mobileburn.com/ (HTML5)

Mobile edition of one of the better mobile review and news sites on the web. Simple design works well on all phones.

10-Feb-2013: No longer has a mobile formated or responsive site


What's This?

IntoMobile

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.intomobile.com/ (xhtml-mp)

IntoMobile Mobile
IntoMobile has long been one of my favorite mobile news blogs. Martin Perez and team do a great job of covering the latest in mobile hardware, software, services and industry news. Their hard work and timely, quality content have made IntoMobile one of the top mobile news sites with over 3.5 million monthly unique visitors, according to Google Analytics.

But a mobile version of Intomobile has been a bit of an off and on affair. There was one m.intomobile.com that launched in 2008. It was generated from IntoMobile's RSS feed using Mofuse.com.  For reasons unknown it eventually disappeared leaving IntoMobile with no mobile friendly version.

But today when I followed a link from Twitter to an IntoMobile story in Opera Mini I was greetted by a new mobile version of IntoMobile built using MobStac.  Browser detection is used to redirect mobile visitors to IntoMobile pages to the corresponding mobile version of the same page. You can also view the mobile version in any browser by going to intomobile.mobstac.com.

MobStac is a freemium service that generates mobile views of WordPress, Blogger, Drupal and Joomla sites. It allows designers considerable control over the content and appearance of the mobilized site and claims to support over 5,000 devices from basic feature phones to the iPad.

I tried IntoMobile with the Android 2.2, Symbian Anna and Opera Mini 6.1 browsers and with a Myriad WAP browser on a Motorola prepaid feature phone.  It generally worked well athough there were a few issues. In all the browsers the link to view a post's comments did not work. The Myriad browser wasn't recognized as mobile and got the desktop site by default which didn't work at all. Once I forced the mobile edition by visiting intomobile.mobstac.com the site loaded quickly and looked great even in this very limited browser.

MobStac resizes images and paginates longer posts to reduce page size for basic browsers. However, Mobstac paginates content for Opera Mini, which is unecessary, as Mini can handle very large pages, and slows browsing.  There's a "Single Page" button which presumably is supposed to show the entire post as a single page but it didn't seem to work. There also a "Desktop Version" link that works although it takes you back to the IntoMobile desktop homepage rather than to the desktop version of the mobile page you were viewing.

It's nice to have a mobile optimized version of IntoMobile again even if it is a little qlitchy. As it's brand new and is still probably being shaken down I have hope that the issues with comments, Opera Mini pagination and Myriad browser detection will be quickly fixed.


What's This?

Mobile Gadgeteer

Content: ****  Usability: XXX
blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer... (HTML5)
A great blog (and a Carnival of the Mobilists host) covering the latest in mobile phone hardware and industry news. The mobile edition is provided by Alex King's WordPress Mobile Edition plugin which is an extremely easy way to mobilize any self-hosted WordPress site.
What's This?

Distimo Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
blog.distimo.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Distimo is a blog about mobile App Stores.  Not just the Apple App Store but also the dozens of manufacturer, operator and 3rd party stores that are springing up every where you look. Content includes mobile app and app store news and market reports.


What's This?

PhoneDog Mobile

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.phonedog.com/ (xhtml-mp)

PhoneDog Mobile

The mobile edition of  US based mobile phone news and reviews site, PhoneDog.com serves up most of the editorial content on the full-web PhoneDog site in mobile-friendly format.

The one-size-fits-all-devices site's front page lists PhoneDog's most recent posts in chronological order with a thumbnail image for each item. Individual post pages contain the full-text and all the images and videos from the full-web version. Pages can get quite large, over a megabyte in some cases. That shouldn't be a problem for any modern smartphone or for lesser devices running a proxy browser like Opera Mini, UC Browser or Bolt but could be too much for the embedded WAP browsers on some feature phones.

PhoneDog is best known for its videos which include unboxings and in-depth video reviews of phones and software. The mobile edition retains all the videos in posts and also has a separate "Videos" tab listing featured videos. PhoneDog's videos are served from YouTube which does a great job of detecting devices and delivering the optimal video format for each phone.

Other tabs at the top of each page lead to the phone Reviews page and a New Phones page of announcements and gossip regarding unreleased devices.

PhoneDog was one of the last mobile news sites to get a mobile edition. I've heard that the main PhoneDog site was built with custom in-house code, rather than an off the shelf CMS like WordPress or Drupal, which made mobilizing it somewhat complex. Whatever it took, the result is worth it. PhoneDog Mobile looks great, is easy to navigate and has all the content the site's regulars expect.


What's This?

Fone Arena

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.mippin.com/mip/plus/list.jsp?&... (xhtml-mp)

Fone Arena

Fone Arena (not to be confused with U.S. based phonearena.com) is India's biggest mobile hardware review and news sites. With a great team of contributing writers around the world it delivers in depth reviews and photos of the latest handsets as well as industry news and rumors. 

Fone Arena is also the home of the "Mobile Doctor" who answers reader's questions about phone and network problems and handset features.

The mobile version of Fone Arena uses WordPress Mobile Pack

Apr-2011: Fone Arena has switched to Mippin for its mobile version.


What's This?

cellular-news

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.cellular-news.com/ (xhtml-mp)

London based online trade publication that has been covering wireless telecommunications since 1998. The site publishes an average of 50 items a day.


What's This?

Brighthand

Content: ****1/2  Usability: XXXX1/2
www.brighthand.com/mobile/ (HTML5)

Formerly known as BargainPDA.com, Brighthand is a mobile technolgy news and review site


What's This?

Fierce Wireless

Content: ***  Usability: XXXX
www.fiercewireless.com/ (HTML5)

Well known mobile industry news blog.


What's This?

Wireless Duniya

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
wirelessduniya.com (xhtml-mp)

Mobile edition of mobile user experience expert Sidhartha Bezbora's excellent blog on mobile technology and business. Sidhartha's using Fdm8 (review) a great way to almost instantly create a mobile version of your web site.


What's This?

Tomi Ahonen

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
communities-dominate.blogs.com/.... (xhtml-mp)

Tomi Ahonen's "Communities Dominate Brands" blog is now available in a mobile formatted version. Tomi is a mobile visionary, consultant and author noted for his long form blog posts that are often outspoken, controversial and contrarian but always backed up with copious statistics, examples and case studies. A must read for everyone in mobile.


What's This?

Terence Eden's Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
shkspr.mobi/blog/ (xhtml-mp)

Terence Eden works for Vodafone and blogs about mobile and other topics. Mobile version uses WordPress Mobile Pack


What's This?

Prepaid Phone News

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.prepaidphonenews.com/?m=1 (xhtml-mp)

prepaid phone news - Blogger Mobile

PrepaidPhoneNews.com is WapReview's sister site covering the US prepaid mobile industry from a user's perspective. It's updated constantly with the latest sales and deals on prepaid phones, plans and refill PIns.

The site profiles and compares all the major prepaid providers using handy tables to help you find the best voice, text and data packages for your needs and budget.

There are two mobile versionns of Prepaid Phone News.

mippin.com/prepaid - "Lite" version for feature phone browsers

prepaidphonenews.com/?m=1 - Rich mobile version for smartphones and proxy browsers like Opera Mini.


What's This?

Tripleodeon

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.tripleodeon.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Tripleodeon is James Pearce's blog. James is VP Emerging Technologies at dotMobi and writes about mobile development and industry trends. The blog's mobile edition created using James WordPress Mobile Pack plugin.


What's This?

WAP Review

Content:  Usability:
wapreview.com (xhtml-mp)

Announcing WAP Review Mobile! I've launched a new mobile version of this blog featuring almost everything on the full site in a format that I hope will work on even the most brain dead of WAP2 phones. It's based on Alex King's wp-mobile WordPress plugin which I've tweaked a little to suit my tastes.  Image: Wap Review Mobile  There is browser detection so if you hit wapreview.com with a mobile device you should automatically get the mobile version. As a side benefit if you follow a link to any of the posts on the blog, for example from  Bloglines Mobile you should get the mobile version of that post. All the images in the full posts have been re-sized to more mobile friendly dimensions and longer posts are split into multiple pages so everything should work even on memory starved low end devices. You can force mobile rendering even on a PC by using the url mp.wapreview.com. Another url, pc.wapreview.com will always render the full version even on mobile devices.

If you encounter any problems such as getting the wrong version, error messages or the images not showing up, please let me know either by leaving a comment or via the contact form. The mobile edition has no contact form but does support leaving comments. Try to give me as much information as possible such as phone make and model, carrier/provider and a clear description of the problem. I can't promise to fix every issue but I'll do my best. Note that you must have a device capable of rendering html, wml-only phones will get redirected a text-only WINKsite version of the blog.

While I'm at it let me put in a plug for WINKsite which I've been using for years. They offer a free service that allows anyone to create an instant mobile site from any RSS feed. I think it's a great service - extremely easy to use and it produces a mobile site that is compatible with just about every mobile browser.


What's This?

The Mobility Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
mobility.com.ng/ (xhtml-mp)

A mobile technology based blog from Nigeria, The Mobility Blog is packed with useful information, tutorials and tips on mobile services in Nigeria, one of the world's fastest growing mobile markets. The frequently updated site also features handset reviews.

 


What's This?

Phone News

Content: *****  Usability: XXXX
www.phonenews.com (xhtml-mp)

PhoneNews Home PageOne of the better news blogs covering mobile. The focus is on new handset releases and US carrier news. Phone News uses WordPress and a new (to me) Wordpress plugin called wp-pda which reformats the blog as a large mobile site (around 40 KB per page), making it best suited to viewing with mobile full web browsers like Opera Mobile or Mini, Nokia WebKit or the iPhone's Safari.

There's also a PhoneNews Forum where users discuss phones and carriers. The forum is starting to get some posting activity which is the key to a successful and useful forum.

The forum runs on Invision Power Board with a new version of the WiForums mobile add-on. WiForums creates a smaller page of around 20KB which should be OK even on low spec phones. If your phone is choking on the main PhoneNews page, you can go directly to the forums by entering phonenews.com/m/forums. And if you are using a better browser WiForums is configurable using the Settings page where you increase the number of threads and posts per page and turn off pagination to make the most of your browser's capabilities.


What's This?

Mobile Industry Review

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
mobileindustryreview.com/?mobi (xhtml-mp)
Mobile Industry Review Self described "mobile fanatic" Ewan MacLeod's long running, extremely popular and always fascinating blog focuses on mobile carriers and industry news but covers just about everything mobile related along the way. I know "mobile carriers and industry news" sounds boring but Mobile Industry Review is anything but. Ewan doesn't doesn't parrot vendor news releases like so many industry themed sites, he wittily cuts through the crap to point out smart and dumb business moves and what they mean for us ordinary mobile users. Mobile Industry Review is another WordPress blog using Andy Moore's plugin to create the mobile version.
What's This?

The Handheld Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXX
thehandheldblog.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Vaibhav Sharma's The Handheld Blog grew out of the merger of his The Symbian Blog and The MeeGo Blog. As the name suggests The Handheld Blog  covers all platforms with a current emphasis Android, Windows Phone, Symbian, and what's left of MeeGo. It features news, device and app reviews and tips for getting the most from you phone.

The mobile version is built with WPtouch, which supports Webkit based smartphone browsers. If you have trouble loading or using  the site with an unsupported mobile browser try the Mippin mobile version.


What's This?

Mobile Marketing

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/ (xhtml-mp)

Mobile edition of Mobile Marketing Magazine has the full text and mobile optimized images from items on the magazine's full site.  Coverage includes mobile marketing news, analysis and interviews. The site also tracks and reports on current mobile campaigns by leading brands. The attractive cross platform mobile site is by bemoko.


What's This?

Mobile Europe

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
m.mobileeurope.co.uk/mobileeurop... (xhtml-mp)

Mobile Europe

New to me, but Mobile Europe has been around for 14 years as a controlled circulation (meaning it's distributed for free to industry professionals) print magazine covering the mobile telecoms industry with a euro-centric focus. It also has a website and this mobile website.

I don't normally give much shrift to these sorts of indusry rags, which tend to be mostly cut and pasted press releases. But two things caught my eye about Mobile Europe. For one, the content is actually interesting with timely, well written articles and opinion pieces tracking industry news. They aren't afraid to bite the hand that feeds them either judging by comments like this one  about Carrier IQ "Why is the application “hidden” on the phone, and hard to remove? Should there be a level of opt-in, as with location data on other apps, for example?"

The other thing I like about Mobile Europe is the mobile site design. It's a one size fits all affair that manages to strike a nice balance between looking modern and graphically interesting in the decent browsers on Android, iOS, etc. and is still responsive and usable in the legacy Openwave browser of a low end feature phone I tried it on.


What's This?

Mobility Site

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.mobilitysite.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Microsoft MVP Chris Leckness' launched "Aximsite" in 2003 covering Dell's Axim PocketPC PDAs. After a series of name changes and sub-sites (IpaqHQ, Tiltsite) it became MobiliySite which today covers "Everything with a battery" with news, reviews and tips for users of all mobile devices.


What's This?

TheTelecomNews

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
thetelecomnews.com/?mobile=1 (xhtml-mp)

Indian based news blog covering the Telecom and  Mobile industries. The mobile edition was created with Wapple Architect.


What's This?

Mobility Beat

Content: ****  Usability: XXX
m.mobilitybeat.com (HTML5)
Mobility Beat HomepageMobility Beat gathers the latest mobile industry and handset news from several dozen sites including All About Symbian, Phone Scoop, Engadget Mobile, Gizmodo, jkOnTheRun, MobileBurn and many lesser known blogs including Wap Review. The site's attractive front page lists the title of each item together with the site's favicon. Items posted in the last hour are marked with a blue dot. You can filter the items to include only a articles covering a  specific topic like Android or Windows Mobile. Clicking a headline leads to a summary page which has options to go to the full article on the site where it was published, view a mobilized version or add the item as a social bookmark on PhonFavs.  MobilitBeat uses PhoneFavs own transcoder which is fairly basic.  It does a good job of reformatting pages as a single column but does not split pages or resize images.  Mobilized pages from image heavy sites like TechCrunch may be too large to load on phones with basic Wap browsers.  My suggestion, use Google's transcoder instead.  It works, it's free and Google doesn't seem to mind.
What's This?

Nitish Kumar's Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
nitishkumar.net/ (xhtml-mp)

Popular mobile tech blog whose byline is "Layman's take on technology. Doesn't need to have a super brain. Just do your bit". Covers primarily mobile tech, especially Nokia devices, and mobile apps with profusely illustrated in-depth reviews.


What's This?

SlashPhone

Content: ***  Usability: XXXX
www.slashphone.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Slashphone.com on the web is a general phone fan site with news, reviews, a tips section and an active user's forum. The mobile version only has the news items.

 


What's This?

UK Mobile Review

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.ukmobilereview.com/ (xhtml-mp)

UK Mobile Review is a consumer oriented blog covering mobile handsets. Content includes product launches and announcements, rumors, industry news and phone reviews. The site is updated frequently, several times a day on most days.


What's This?

The Mobile Perspective

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
themobileperspective.com/ (xhtml-mp)

The Mobile Perspective

Formerly aBrilliantBlog, this is @JebBrilliant's blog on all things mobile. Jeb is the community manager for Phone.com and also runs a trade show and events production company.

At The Mobile Perspective, Jeb covers mobile services, VOIP, social networking and devices. Content includes reviews, news and opinion pieces as well as video interviews with industry executives and major players.

Jeb uses WordPress Mobile Pack to deliver a small footprint, quick loading version of the site to all mobile browsers. Unfortunately, the mobile version doesn't include the site's many videos. These are mostly interviews with industry executives and developers and are generally quite good.

Fortunately there is a working "Switch to our desktop site" link at the bottom of each mobile page.  The videos on the desktop site are hosted on YouTube and work well on an Android phone. On a Nokia N8, the videos worked when opened from Opera Mini or Opera Mobile, but they did not work in the Symbian browser.


What's This?

The Mobile Fanatics

Content: ****  Usability: XX
www.themobilefanatics.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Launched in 2010, "The Mobile Fanatics" is a mobile technology blog featuring mobile  industry news, reviews and tutorials. It's updated frequently by a staff of five lead by Mike Macias. The mobile edition uses the WordPress Mobile Edition from Crowd Favorite.

10-Feb-2013: No longer has a mobile formated or RWD site


What's This?

Wireless Watch Japan

Content: ****  Usability: XXX
wirelesswatch.jp/wp-mobile.php (HTML5)
Mobile edition of a popular blog covering the latest from the world's most advanced mobile culture.
What's This?

MobHappy

Content: *****  Usability: XXXX
www.mobhappy.com/?mobi (xhtml-mp)
One of the first and best blogs on mobile topics. It's written by mobile technology journalist Carlo Longino and mobile marketeer and Carnival of the Mobilists founder Russell Buckley. MobHappy is one of my favorite blogs and a must read for anyone interested in the field. The mobile edition was created with Andy Moore's Wordpress Mobile Plugin which is an another great way to create an instant mobile edition of your self-hosted WordPress blog.
What's This?

PhoneBoy Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.phoneboy.com/ (HTML5)

Dameon "Phone Boy" Welch-Abernathy's day job doesn't have anything to do with mobile. Nevertheless he writes a great blog on phones, VoIP, mobile software and the occasion rant against carrier stupidity. The mobile version is via Alex King's Word Press Mobile plugin


What's This?

RickyCadden.com

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.rickycadden.com/ (xhtml-mp)

RickyCadden.com Homepage

I just discovered the personal blog of Ricky Cadden, one of my favorite mobile writers. And it's available in mobile friendly format  Ricky's the Editor of Symbian-Guru.com and Tablet-Guru.com, as well as the News Editor at MobileBurn.com. On his blog Ricky covers everything mobile related especially  tips, opinions and observations on the mobile scene. The site uses a brand new version of Alex King's Word Press Mobile Edition plugin which supports themes and is obtimized for touch devices like the iPhone while maintaining compatibility with older non-touch handsets.


What's This?

Smart Mobs

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
smartmobs.mobify.me/ (xhtml-mp)

Smart Mobile Mobile

Smart Mobs is an active and popular Web site covering technology, especially mobile and the Internet, and its relation to society, culture and politics. The emphasis is on using tech for social good and political action. The site has a big following among web and mobile people.

Smart Mobs' editor and a major contributor is Howard Rheingold, an author and researcher who has been studying technology and its effects on thought and human interaction since the 1980's. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with coining the term "Virtual Community". Rheingold is best know for his ground breaking 2002 book, also titled "Smart Mobs". The book explores how mobile technology, particularly text messaging, has enabled communication and cooperation among groups of disconnected people for social interaction and political action with profound effects on culture, politics and society.

The new Smart Mobs mobile site was built using Mobify and includes the full editorial connect of the desktop site.


What's This?

Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
blackphoebe.mobi (xhtml-mp)

L.A. based web and mobile designer/developer Jenifer Hanen's blog covering design, the web, mobile and photography. I love this rant of hers about sites that force mobile users to a dumbed down mobile version with no way to get to the full site.


What's This?

tnkgrl Mobile

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
tnkgrl.wordpress.com (xhtml-mp)

tnkgrl Mobile

Thanks to Wordpress.com now automatically generating a mobile formatted version of all hosted blogs, one of my favorite mobile and gadget sites, tnkgrl Mobile, is finally mobile friendly!

tnkgrl always seems to get a hold of the latest phones, netbooks and tablets before anyone else.  Not only does she unbox, review, photograph and video her review units in exhaustive detail but she also takes them apart, hacks and unlocks them.

Only tnkgrl would show you how to add internal Bluetooth and a 3G modem to an Acer Aspire One, switch the Sony Vaio P's internal modem from EVDO to HSDPA or fix your N97's scratched camera lens with a floppy disk!


What's This?

Fone Frenzy

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
fonefrenzy.wordpress.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Fone Frenzy Mobile

I recently discovered Fone Frenzy via tankgrl who's latest "Talking with tnkgrl" video podcast features the site's Tony Peric as co-host.

Fone Frenzy is a a general mobile news and reviews site something like MobileCrunch, IntoMobile or Engadget Mobile. The difference is that Fone Frenzy is, as far as I can tell, entirely Tony's own work. He's an incredibly knowledgeable mobile technology fanatic who gives his own personal, unbiased opinions on the latest mobile news and writes in-dept, impartial reviews, often with video, of the newest phones and mobile services. Tony's a post machine too, cranking out a half a dozen or more posts a day when there is a lot of breaking news, like at CES this week which Tony is covering live of course.

And Fonefrenzy, like tnkgrl Mobile, is a Wordpress.com hosted blog so it's ad free and loads quickly on your phone thanks to Wordpresss', enabled by default, mobile plugins which automatically detect mobile browsers and deliver a full featured mobile formatted version to them.

Hasn't been updated since 2011


What's This?

Dan's Blog (2.0)

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.torgo.com/blog/ (xhtml-mp)

The personal blog of Daniel Appelquist; Mobile Monday London founder, co-chair of the W3C's Mobile Best Practices Working Group and Web & Internet Evangelist at Vodafone. On his blog Dan posts his thoughts on mobile trends, standards, apps, the web and the conferences he attends, organizes and presents at,


What's This?

Gadjade

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
gadjade.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Jade Bryant's tech blog covering mobile gadgets, apps and industry news. Jade is also a frequent contributor to Nokia Innovation and Nokia World, but he covers all platforms on Gadjade.


What's This?

mobiThinking

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
mobithinking.mobi/?dm_switcher=t... (xhtml-mp)

From dotMobi's marketing department, mobiThinking features a showcase of mobile sites,case studies, guides, interviews, mobile marketing news and a lively blog with in depth articles on all aspects of the mobile web industry.


What's This?

gerrymoth.co.uk

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
gerrymoth.co.uk (xhtml-mp)

UK Blogger Gerry Moth has merged his three sites (nokiAAddict, Gerrymoth's 3UK and Gerrymoth.mp) into a new all in one domain, gerrymoth.co.uk where he promises to hold forth on "Nokia, Android, iPhone, Music, Web, Football, Beer, etc.. news, reviews and gossip." Naturally the new site is mobile friendly thanks to WordPress Mobile Pack.


What's This?

Mobile & Social

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
julien.fourgeaud.com/ (xhtml-mp)

Frequently updated blog by Nokia and Symbian veteran turned mobile industry management consultant Julien Fourgeaud.  Julien covers Nokia, Symbian, Meego and social networking and video blogs his more interesting life experiences and travels.


What's This?

Yahoo! Mobile Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
ymobileblog.com/blog/ (xhtml-mp)

New mobile product announcements, tips and tricks and mobile industry news from the Yahoo! Mobile team. Made mobile with the Carrington WordPress Mobile Edition plugin.


What's This?

JAMM

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
justanothermobilemonday.com/Word... (xhtml-mp)

Just Another Mobile Monday (JAMM) is a blog offering tips and tricks for getting the most out of mobile devices and software.  JAMM also covers the mobile industry with news, reviews and opinions.


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Mobiletech

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
wap.mobiletech.no/ (xhtml-mp/wml)

Blog, news and mobile design tips  from Norwegian mobile web platform developer Mobiletech. 


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PhoneScoop

Content: ***1/2  Usability: XXXXX
www.phonescoop.com/wml/index.php (wml)
News and new phone announcements
What's This?

Kaywa Mobile

Content: ***1/2  Usability: XXX1/2
mobile.kaywa.com/mobile/ (HTML5/wml)
The sites moto is "All about Mobile Life and more..(the Notebook)" It's a log with mostly short comments about the latest mobile technologies and products. Most articles have links to the original articles (which aren't optimized for mobiles). Like most blogs, user's can leave comments which can be read by all. Site is very slow and seems to be down frequently.
What's This?

MoMo Tokyo

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.mobilemonday.jp/wp-mobile.php (HTML5)

Mobile technologists and visionaries gather monthly at MobileMonday events in over 60 cities around the world to see presentations by local startups. All the Mobile Monday chapters have Web sites, and most also have mobile sites. Here's the Tokyo chapter's site which has a calendar of future MOMo events and nice writeup of past ones.


What's This?

The Application Register

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.theappregister.com/ (xhtml-mp)

The Application Register is the companion site to Ewan MacLeod's (Mobile Industry Review) new free email newsletter  covering the best mobile applications iPhone, Symbian, Android and occasionally other platforms. Great site if you're like me and prefer getting Ewan's wit and wisdom in daily online snacks rather than the weeky email feast of a newsletter.


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Roland Tanglao's Blog

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
mowser.com/feed/rolandtanglao.co... (xhtml-mp)

Roland Tanglao's Blog - Mobile Edition

Roland Tanglao has been blogging since 1999 and has over 60,000 photos on Flickr.  He's based in Vancouver and is one of the founders of the Drupal hosting service, Bryght. He is now with another startup, CrowdTrust.

Roland blogs a lot about mobile with indepth pieces like an exhaustive "stream of consciousness" 10 part review of the Nokia N97 based on his experiences using a review unit as his main phone for 11 days.  Although Roland reports a litany of bugs and UI shortcomings with his early firmware unit, he still recommends it, but "only for S60 geeks". Mobile version of his blog was created from the RSS feed using mowser.mobi.


What's This?

SmartphoneCorner

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
www.smartphonecorner.mobi (xhtml-mp)

A news blog covering iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry devices and software.  Mobile version is powered by the WordPress Mobile Pack.


What's This?

The Really Mobile Project

Content: ****  Usability: XXXX
thereallymobileproject.com/ (xhtml-mp)

The Really Mobile Project

Mobile Industry Review alums James Whatley, Ben Smith and Dan Lane  together with new face Vikki Chowney have a new site,  The Really Mobile Project which picks up where MIR TV left off with coverage of the mobile world from all angles in text and video.

The Really Mobile Project will autodetect mobile browsers and deliver an adapted but fully functional and content-complete mobile edition. There's even a mobile friendly alternate URL, trmp.to.

I'm particularly impressed by the way The Really Mobile Project handles video on the mobile side. instead of embedded Flash, mobiles get an image link to the video on YouTube. It works beautifully and makes Google do all the hard work of device detection and transcoding to a video format that the handset can handle.

Hasn't been updated since 2011


What's This?

AvecMobile

Content: ***  Usability: XXX
www.avecmobile.com/index.php?id=28 (HTML5)

News and how to's

Hasn't been updated since 2011


What's This?

Camera Phone Report

Content: ***1/2  Usability: XXX1/2
winksite.com/reiter/cameraphone (wml)

Alan Reiter's blog covering all aspects of Camera Phones including their social implications.

Hasn't been updated since 2008


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What's This?
QR Code
It's a QR (Quick Response) Code containing the URL of WapReview Mobile. Snap it with your phone's QR Code reader to go to the WapReview mobile site.

Ratings Key :

Content - 0-5 *'s indicating the quality of the site's writing, depth, timeliness and accuracy.

Usability - 0-5 X's indicating the usability of the site on a mobile device, based on ease and intuitivness of navigation and lack of excessive scrolling through ads etc. to reach main content.