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Bling is a word that has recently arrived in popular culture to define the need to wear your wealth on the outside. Big gold chains, expensive clothes (with labels on the outside) and an over the top car could be classed as ‘bling’. Many people, including me, sneer at bling but some love it and this may explain why some of the following phones cost so much.

The Nokia 8800 Arte Sapphire retails for £1,044.95, yet has the specification of a £300 phone. The 3.2MP camera, 3G, 1GB of memory and OLED display are all very nice but you would need to be seriously loaded, or headed for financial oblivion to buy one.

"The Nokia 8800 Arte Sapphire, a harmony of sensual and sensory experience. With a stunning 3.2 mega-pixel camera, 1GB of on board memory and a brilliant 2" OLED display, encapsulated by solid metal & glass body flanked by soft natural leather."

The RAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition is by all accounts an average phone with a 2MP camera, no 3G and EDGE support, so why does it cost £474.95? Part of the reason is the 18k gold plating on the keys and hinge plus the diamond cut sidebad. It really does look truly dreadful, but each to their own.

"OTORAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition. A stunning blend of elegance and high-performance features that brings the revolutionary RAZR2 form to the pinnacle of ultra-premium cool. With lavish 18k gold plated accents, engraved details and a black snakeskin pattern, this exclusive edition RAZR™ is sharper than ever."

The Goldvish 'Le Million' is in a whole new league as fr as expensive mobile phones go. With a price tag of, are you sitting down?, $1,000,000 it is in many ways a remarkable piece of work. It is a one of a kind and includes 120 carats worth of VVS-1 grade diamonds. Goldvish also makes more reasonably priced phones, but that depends on your definition of reasonable because one of it's phones will still set you back a few thousand dollars. Chance are that it will also still look dreadful as well, as most overly expensive items do...

The Sony Ericsson Black Diamond was originally meant to be released in 2007, and in a limited quantity of only 5 models. The price was stated at (cough) $300,000, buit it never came to the mainstream market as a cheaper variant. The design is stunning, so maybe it wasn't 'bling' enough for the people who could afford it.

I am tempted to include the iPhone, but couldn't cope with the forum argument that would follow: The iPhone to me is a 'bling' phone, and as much as I like it I wouldn't want to use a phone that everyone else is using. That may sound daft, but after many years of being the 'odd one out' phone wise I want to keep it that way...

News will be light on Monday, because of the Easter holiday. Everybody needs a break now and again, even us!

Whatever you are doing this Easter, have a great time and we will see you back here on Tuesday...

Rampart Chess for Palm OS is currently reduced by $3 in the software store- a very good game. "If you're a beginner, or ready to take on Garry Kasparov, Rampart Chess is the Palm chess program for you. It features high resolution, beautifully-rendered chess pieces, a very powerful chess engine with 5 levels of game play, a two-player mode to challenge your friends, and a fully editable chessboard to set up legendary chess games or puzzles. Use Rampart Chess to learn the game, sharpen your skills, and enjoy hours and hours of challenging fun."

The mobile phone High Tech Computer (HTC) has been developing to run on the Android software from Google will be called "Dream," have a large touchscreen and full QWERTY keypad, a person close to the situation said Thursday.
 
HTC may become the first handset maker in the world to put out a mobile phone developed around Android, but it faces stiff competition from Samsung, a separate source said. Samsung has stepped up its effort to put out a Google phone, the person said.

HTC's Google handset is just over 5-inches long and 3-inches wide, with a keypad underneath the screen that either slides out or swivels out. The aim of the keypad is for easy e-mail, note-taking and writing Web addresses.

Internet navigational controls are situated below the screen on the handset. More at Yahoo.

Today's free eBook is Safeguard by Nancy Kress- "In the beginning, Li remembered, there had been big faceless people, white as cartoons. These memories were quick and slippery, like dreams. The other children didn’t have them at all. Since that time, there had been only the real cartoons, the world, and Taney.

He had realized a long time ago that Taney was a person inside a white cartoon covering, and that he himself was a person inside the world, another covering. The world must also have an outside because when Taney left after each visit, she couldn’t have stayed for days in the space behind the leaving door. The space was too small, not even room to lie down to sleep. And what would she eat or drink in there until she came back? And where did she get the fried cakes and other things she brought them?

“There’s another door, isn’t there, Taney?” he said yet again as the five of them sat around the feeder in the Grove. The feeder had just brought up bowls of food, but no one except Sudie was eating them because Taney had brought a lot of fried cakes in a white bag. Sudie, always greedy, had eaten three fried cakes and half a bowl of stew and now slumped happily against a palm tree, her naked belly round and her lips greasy. Jana sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, her thin arms clasped around her legs. Kim stared at nothing.

Li repeated, “Another door. You go out of the world through another door, don’t you?”"