One of the guys I’ve known from various MoMusu related forums has passed away. :’(
My deepest condolences to his sister, his family and all his friends.
Thank you marimari for everything!
Soo.. YesAsia.com has finally decided to ship out my copy of Reina’s first book..
Tanaka Reina – Tanaka Reina
Now I have to chose between getting Risa’s first PB or Mako’s 2nd book.. Or maybe Konno’s last book? Choices, choices.. 
Here’s a review of Toshiba 803T cellphone I wrote for HowardForums.
I have the UK version (TS803) so some things may not apply to the HK or JP version.
note: I used to have 902SH so I may compare 803T to Sharp phone here and there..
The phone is BIG.. For American phone standards anyways.. But I don’t find it any bigger than my 902.. It’s big but.. it feels much lighter than the 902.. And the weight it more balanced even when the phone is open.
The keys are big.. But.. I find the keys backlight very low but it’s still possible to read the keys in the dark. The inclusion of the front keys for the media player is nice.. And for me it kind of kills the purpose of the remote/hands-free device.. I can easily change songs directly on the phone without the need for the remote on the handsfree.
Music player is nice.. Still getting use to it. Kind of sucks with the 192k max limit as most of my mp3s are at 320k. So I have to re-encode the stuff I want to put on my phone. There is one problem for me anyways.. No ‘random & repeat all’. You can either have all random or all repeat. Sucks for short playlists when it just stops after playing all songs once.
Video playback.. Haven’t been able to encode anything that’d be playable by this phone yet. Everything gives me ‘unsupported format’.
Address book: Same format as the one used on the 902SH. I was able to just import my backup of the address book. I had problems with some of the pictures missing but it only happened with like 10% of them so it was easy to fix that.
Communication: I’ve only used USB so far. And no problems at all. Few things about it that I don’t like. When plugged in the phone can be in 2 modes: file transfer where it disables the calls or in the charge mode where the phone works just fine but it doesn’t show up in your computer. So if you want to transfer some songs and then leave it charging from the USB you’ll have to unplug the phone and plug it back in again. Kind of annoying for me.
Since it’s the European version I don’t expect any problems with the Bluetooth. I’ll try it when I get my card back.
Ringtones: mp3 ringtones are not a problem. Like in any other phone the mp3 will be copied to your phones internal memory so don’t use 20mb mp3s.. The ringtones are loud and clear and the vibration is pretty stong.
Display. Well.. I don’t know.. To be honest I don’t see much difference between the screen used on the 902SH and 803T. Same resolution (weee! I can use my old wallpapers with no problem) and the setup of the screen (ie. location of the icons etc) is similar to the Sharp phone. External screen is nice.. But.. I hate that you can’t set your own wallpaper for it. ? I’d love to be able to put anything I want on there. The preset wallpapers are pretty lame..
Themes: European version came with 4 themes for the main display: Vodafone Live!, Electro, Pop and Underground. For the external screen there are 6 wallpapers: Sub-woofer, Comic, House, Speaker, Digital and Zones.
WAP/Email/SMS: Haven’t set anything up yet so can’t really comment on those features. But I see for emails it supports 6 email accounts that can be either POP3 or IMAP (1 VF preset + 5 custom ones).
Camera.. Well.. I’m not impressed with the quality of the photos. I’ll take 902SH over this phone when it comes to the picture taking department. Maybe I got just spoiled with the Sharp phone. Also the lack of zoom is damn annoying. The speed is also pretty slow even when saving in the lowest settings to the internal memory.
Video camera. Here this phone shines.. The quality of the video recordings kick 902’s ass big time. The sound is loud and the picture quality is sharp for that resolution. Also I don’t see any frame dropping when watching the videos recorded with this phone..
The LED light is bright but only one color. Another nice thing about the camera on this phone: you can disable the camera sounds!!
Reception. This one is weird.. 803T has a way better reception than the Sharp phone. In my bedroom with 902 I’d lose the reception all the time even next to the window. So far I haven’t lost the signal with the 803T in my house. Even works in my basement where 902 would get no signal at all.
Other random stuff I don’t like about this phone:
- No swivel for the screen..
- No internal camera. I know, I know.. Shouldn’t matter since Rogers doesn’t have 3G but I travel to countries with 3G so I’d love to be able to use all the good stuff when in Japan or Europe.
- Covers. Those rubber bands that keep the port covers are damn annoying.. And I have my headphones plugged in all the time so I’m worried I’ll rip the cover from the hands-free port one day just by putting the phone in my pocket or something.
- This one is useless for me but I’d like to point it out anyways: no mirror! So if you’re one of those people who take your own pictures with your phone you’ll be taking pictures without knowing what will show up on the screen.
- Red LED flashing when in the camera mode.
- You stay in the menu even after you close the phone.
- No desktop charger for the UK version..
Wow.. That’s all I can say.. <3
Make sure you buy it.. It’s totally worth it!!
Yay! My copy of Reinas book has finally arrived.. Looks even better than the scans.. 
Tanaka Reina – Shojou R
Btw. The gallery is pretty busy with the previews from the upcoming photobooks from Niigaki (my copy is in the mail already) and Abe so I’ve decided not to upload any new wallpapers this week.. I may upload them closer to the weekend but it’ll depend on when the scans from those 2 new books get released to the public..
So a package from yesasia.com came in today with 3 new books:
Tanaka Reina – Reina
Takahashi Ai – 19
Kamei Eri – 17sai
I had 2 more books on order but.. yesasia.com has decided to pull one of their famous ‘uh, we’ll email you when we get them.. Maybe this year, maybe in 2 years’ on them..
About a year ago I was complaining about the hot weather.. Guess what? It’s even hotter today! (left: the sunny side, right: the shady side of our house)
Thanks to the T.T.C. being on strike I’m sitting home trying to relax.. But it’s pretty hard in this heat.. 
I know, I know.. People in Miami or other southern places get this kind of temperatures every day.. But come on! This is TORONTO! The city where we have to call in the canadian army to clean up our snow..
I’d preffer to be at work.. Inside of a nice air-conditioned office.. But.. What can I do? I guess I’ll just grab some book, bottle of Coke, some ice and try to enjoy my forced vacation day..
Finally got my hands on Yuko’s 2nd photobook:
And I should have 4 more books coming in June..
Weee.. Gaki-san is getting her second pb.. Let’s hope for less bikini and more of her face..
Lately I’ve only been watching H!M just to see her reactions (and how Kame-shige may get abused in the news segment)..
http://www.exile90.com/images/hm/gaki1.jpg” />
.. in the stores that is..
Too bad I’ll have to wait til end of the month for my copy.. I have it on the same order as Eri’s book so I have to wait for that to come out.
‘Tanaka Reina – Shojou R’
(Some previews from Reina’s book)
‘Kamei Eri – 17sai’
(Previews from Eri’s book)
