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Samsung has come out with another exciting technology which will be put to use over the space of the next few months. Samsung claim they have created the first LCD which can produce independent images on both sides of the screen. If what is reported is infact true, we are going to have a great time in terms of new mobile phones with such screens. The biggest advantage for Samsung here is that other manufactures who have managed to come close to these type of displays use two light sources while this one makes use of only one.
What these double sided LCDs will do for the mobile phone market is pretty evident. For one, it will reduce the thickness of the phones which nowadays is one of the major benchmarks for newest generation of phones.
These LCDs as reported will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in the next 3 days. The LCD TFT display measures 2.6mm thick and 2.22 inches wide. At the moment they have come out with displays with a QVGA resolution but that can change very fast.
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I have come across a lot of concept phones in the last few days but this one is specifically noteworthy in comparison to the others. The Eclipse phone as its called is actually just a square in its close form ofcourse very thin as imagined by the designer. The phone could even make use of the Motorola SCPL technology which is undoubtedly the future of mobile phones.
The phone is pictured with a nice LCD that pops up like a screen and it will have a LED type display. Not necessary a color phone, but on the similar lines of the Motorola MOTOFONE. The mobile phone being a concept phone could have just been portrayed with a color screen and the extra jazz which would have made it difficult to re-create in the near future, but since its monochrome it gives that realistic feel to it.
When the display is popped up the light on the keypad glows which looks pretty good in the photos we’ve seen. Lets see if we get to see any of these at the price of the MOTOFONE especially.
Tags: concept, rune larson
We did a sneak preview of the Samsung Z720 last week and we didn’t know too much about the software that would come pre installed with this phone. We have now seen enough of this phone on the internet and other reports suggesting that the Samsung Z720, the Ultra Edition 13.8 comes with a whole host of Google apps loading in it.
Yes, this is infact true. Till this time we knew that about the various applications Google had released for mobile phones and you can install them at your own risk on your phones. This is the first phone to release which already have the apps installed like the Gmail mobile, Google search app, Google Maps and a few more.
Earlier there was a rumor suggesting that it would be Orange and HTC starting out for the Googlephone but it looks like everyone was wrong and its Samsung’s turn to begin the trend which looks as if its going to continue for some time to come.
Tags: googlephone, samsung, z720
The Sony Ericsson K790i Cyber Shot phone is a wonderful addition to the ‘K’ Cyber shot series from SE. The phone is made for Tri band GSM network and has many different version for various regions. We’ll just have a generic view of the ‘international’ edition of the phone since the features are absolutely the same with only the signal band changing. The phone was announced earlier this year and is now available for a price of close to $400.
The Sony Ericsson K790i comes with a nice 256k color TFT screen with a display resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The phone weighs close to 115 grams and measures 105 x 47 x 22 mm. As you expect from a ‘cyber shot’ series phone that the camera will be outstanding and you bet it is! The camera has a 3.15 Megapixel CCD which can take photos up to a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The phone comes with autofocus capability and also xenon flash for taking pictures within closed doors or bad light.
The battery of the Sony Ericsson K790i lasts for over 7 hours talktime and close to 300 hours standby. The impressive battery life on this phone is a bonus considering the features it offers.
Tags: autofocus, cyber shot, sony ericsson k790i
All the talk over which company makes the slimmest and the sleekest phones will go on forever, but it looks like Samsung has definitely taken the lead in this particular battle. The Samsung Z720 is the latest HSDPA slider phone which measures only 13.8mm thin.
HSDPA allows you to very high data transfer speeds going as high as 1.8Mbps. With the help of such high data transmission you can enjoy good quality video streaming. The phone weighs only 80 grams and is pretty nice to hold. In addition to these great features it also comes with a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus, and flash too. It also has a 2.1inch QVGA display featuring 262k colors.
It comes with other obvious features like Bluetooth, HTML browser, microSD card slot and also a secondary camera specially for video telephony. If you service provider does not provide you with HSDPA, you also have EDGE and GPRS as a life savior.
The Samsung phone will soon be released in Europe, but the price at which it will come out is not yet known.
Tags: autofocus, hsdpa, samsung phone, video telephony
Toshiba has been concentrating on adding phones as much as they have been looking to capture the LCD / Plasma TV market share. This time they are looking at slimmer phones which are targeted towards youngsters and the next generation.
The Toshiba TS605 is a slim candy bar phone which has just been announced in Korea and is specially for the European market as they say. The TS605 will come with a 1.9 inch screen. The display is a neat 262k color TFT LCD screen.
Overall the Toshiba phone is pretty thin measuring only 10.3 mm, but still not the thinnest we have seen. We have previously seen much thinner Samsung phones and also a couple of phones from Motorola in the sub 10mm benchmark.
The Toshiba TS605 will carry a 1.3 megapixel camera and will come with a memory card slot in addition to the user memory already provided free with the phone. The place where marketing of the phone is overdone, is the color aspect. Toshiba are planning to get these in the stores in pink, green and a few other flashy colors. Are they trying to say silver, gray or black isn’t trendy? If yes, they have got it totally wrong!
Tags: 10mm, memory card slot, toshiba phone
The Chinese companies are the ones we always look for the new fancy and innovative stuff. Now we also have a few companies that are looking forward to introduce good cheap budget handsets. TINYU, a Chinese company has come out with their new handset the A699 which they label as a ‘Budget Multimedia’ phone.
The A699 comes with a 2.2 inch QVGA screen which comes with 260,000 colors and a display resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. The staggering thing is that the phone comes with a touch screen which is very unusual for a phone priced so low.
In addition to the touchscreen, the A699 houses a 1.3 megapixel camera and Mp3 player which plays various audio formats. The phone also comes with Bluetooth A2DP, so you can use your stereo Bluetooth headsets. The TINYU A699 weighs only 90 grams and measures 102 x 43 x 13.5 mm.
Overall the phone is very good for the price, and will cost you only $160 after conversion (the official price is 1280 Hong Kong Dollars).
Tags: A699, bluetooth a2dp, chinese company, TinyU
The 19th of December will be a big landmark for the mobile phone industry as Samsung makes a big announcement in Seoul, Korea today. The new Samsung SCH-V960 is the latest in their line up and will feature a ‘Optical Joystick’ instead of the four / five way navigation keys.
We have previously seen a lot of phone with 4 and 5 way navigation keys on the Sony Ericsson and now the Samsung phones but this will be the first time that such a technology has been used in a mobile phone. The Joystick’s sensors will follow the finger movement over the button which will provide you with navigation in all possible directions, so not limiting it to 4 or 5. The working will be in the exact same way as a normal Joystick on your PC.
To add to this innovative feature, there is also ‘Smart Lighting’ included along with a 2 megapixel camera, a GPS receiver and Bluetooth v1.2. There is no word on the pricing for this phone, but it will be released in late December or early January next year.
Tags: gps receiver, joystick, samsung phones, smart lighting
The mobile phones are getting smaller by the day and soon we shall see one which fits in your ear for that matter. The UK and Dubai based company, Neo has come out with another tiny phone and this time it is in the form of the 808i.
The Neo 808i comes in a very different landscape design and a shinny fancy keypad. The phone could have done better with a wider display but we will have to go with the 1.8inch LCD screen. The phone also houses a 1.3 mega pixel camera along with a 128 mb of flash memory for storing those great pictures you take. Along with the 128mb memory there is also a microSD card slot which can take memory cards up to 1GB in size. There are other features too, like a MP3 player and Bluetooth compatibility.
The phone weighs around 90 grams which is not extremely light, but definitely on the lighter side and measures about 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.3 cms. The Neo 808i is due to be released in 2007.
Tags: bluetooth, microsd card, mobile phones
Rumors flying all around that Google are going to follow the Apple way by launching a phone themselves. The rumors of the Apple iPhone are heard everywhere and Google too think that this could be a productive area. Orange are at the forefront in teaming up with the search engine giant to produce a Google-branded phone.
The best part about the Googlephone if and when released would be the applications and services offered. Since Google is at the centre of great and useful apps like Google earth, Maps, Gmail, Calendar, Spreadsheets and more coupling these with a Smart phone could be a clincher in my opinion. The word out is the phone will be manufactured by HTC, but this opens out another doubt. The HTC phones are all powered by the Microsoft Windows Mobile Operating System and would they be willing to turn to Linux or a open source OS.
Looking at the fact that the services offered by Google are already coming loading on newer phones with whom they have a tie-up, a phone of their own could not be too far away.
Tags: apple iphone, google earth, htc, orange
A Chinese company has created a new MP3 Player / Cell Phone which looks somewhat similar to many of the iPhone prototype images that have been floating around (none of which have been confirmed by Apple). This new gadget is known as the ZTC 321 and it features a 1.3 mega pixel camera.
The reason why this new device looks like the iPhone is because it features its media controls on what looks to be a click wheel. Regardless, the ZTC 321 is not similar enough to the iPod for Apple to sue and it probably won’t ever come to the US. (and it looks a bit… well, rubbish)
The new phone from HTC which is famous for making smartphones and PDAs is going to be the HTC Vox or the HTC S710. This may very well be a codename, we don’t know as of today what the company is thinking of, but we can get you some spy pictures as well as the specs that this phone will carry. The photo is a bit dull and hazy, so please bear since this is just a early look at the phone.
The HTC S710 according to the sources will be a Quad Band GSM phone with double keypad. Yes, so for those of you who don’t want to make use of the QWERTY keypad all the time there is a normaly numeric keypad too. The Vox boasts of a good 2.4inch QVGA TFT screen along with a 128mb ROM and 64mb of RAM.
Other features of the S710 include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and EDGE. The phone weighs about 140 grams and measures close to 100 x 50 x 18mm which is surprisingly thin for a phone like this. The phone could go into production as early as next month but it is not confirmed yet.
With the ever improving telecom market and increase in competition within various carries, everyone is trying to go one up when it comes to providing the best services possible. Gone are the days when you used your WAP with your traditional WAP 1.2.1 browsers and GPRS at 32 – 48 kbps.
The news has come from the officials at Qualcomm that a new data service is set to take the market by storm. Cingular Wireless which is a major telecom player in the United States is all set to launch the HSDPA at 7.2Mbps, the fastest we have seen so far. This service is due to start from January of 2007. It is although not certain if this speed will be the end user speed provided or just a theoretical number provided. All indications say that it could very high speeds that the consumer may enjoy. Telstra which is based in Australia is also set to begin with a similar service for its consumer base in that region.
The advantage of this service will the usage of such a high speed connection on your laptops using a PCMCIA slot.
Tags: cingular wireless, data service, hsdpa, telstra
The ITU telecom world 2006 provided a platform for all the giant handset and telecom companies to show you their new innovations and releases. Toshiba came out with two new phones which are released specifically for the Hong Kong and South East Asia. These phones will be available as soon as next week with the SmarTone-Bodafone carrier. The TX80 is a WCDMA phone and comes with a lot of great features. It will be distributed in Hong Kong and Macau for the moment.
The Toshiba TX80 Mobile phone is a compact 3G handset which works with 900/ 1800/ 1900 GSM networks along with 2100Mhz for 3G. The phone weighs close to 110 grams which is pretty heavy and measures a pretty bulky 49 x 97 x 20mm. The TX80 has an excellent camera which has a 3.2 megapixel CCD and can deliver photos at very high resolutions.
The Toshiba TS32 is a 2.5G phone and works on Tri bang GSM networks. The phone comes with a 262k color TFT screen with a 1.3 mega pixel camera. The phone comes with a microSD card slot which can take memory cards upto 1GB in size. The phone also comes with features like Mp3 player, FM Radio and also a video player.
Tags: 3g, gsm networks, tft screen, toshiba, wcdma
According to ARStechnica , it is possible to listen in on people using their own mobile phones as a bugging device, even if the phone is switched off. It has long been known that you can monitor a persons position using their cell phone location but this new development has to be worrying for people concerned about privacy.
This came to light during a trial of member of the Genovese crime family, phone taps are nothing new but the approval of “roving bugs” is new under US law.
Source: ARSTechnica
A deal had been struck between the two giants last year over Yahoo! Offering their search and Instant messenger services on Nokia handsets. At that time it was only worked out for smart phones, so basically the ones with a Symbian Series 60 Operating system. It has been quite a while now and tons of new phones have been released after that.
Nokia recently announced their new phones like the Nokia 6300 and others at the Amsterdam press release. There have also been new handsets coming from Nokia like the Nokia 5300 and Nokia 5200 mainly aimed for the youth market. These phones come with the more ordinary Series 40 OS. This is where the new deal between Yahoo! and Nokia comes in play.
Yahoo will offer the Yahoo! messenger as well as a Yahoo! mail application on these new phones. This will soon be extended to other Nokia phones with the Series 40 OS. A new Yahoo Personal Management System ( Y! PIM ) is also being worked out by the two companies. The PIM will allow users to synchronize their scheduled and other tasks on their phones with this application.
Tags: nokia 6300, nokia handsets, pim, symbian series 60
Verizon’s V CAST service has been the talk after they announced it and frankly it has been kind of successful for them. It has been reported now since quite a few weeks that the two companies were having talks about a tie up. We never thought it would come so early, but according to Reuters the two companies have confirmed that they have tabled a deal which will allow Verizon to show a select range of ‘You Tube’ videos to their customers through their V CAST service.
It of course does not end here, in addition to viewing streamed content from You Tube, the Verizon subscribers can also upload videos to the site. All the customers who go for this service will be provided with an ‘auth code’ which will enable them to do the same. This was however possible earlier but it involved a lengthy processing of sending the content via email.
The You Tube service however is not going to come with any extra fee as it will be included in the V CAST services. The details of the deal between Verizon and You Tube are not yet known but the users will be able to use it from December onwards.
Tags: verizon, you tube videos
The Samsung SPH-P9000 is the latest phone announced by Samsung and it is surely one of the most stand out ones we have seen in a long time. The device is due to be released in early 2007 and was announced just last week. It is a EV-DO, i.e. a 3G CDMA phone and comes with WiMax support. So you can be assured you will have the fastest data transfer wherever you go.
The Samsung SPH-P9000 comes with a 262,000 colors screen with a display resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. The phone is extremely heavy at 560 grams, yes, that’s about 1lb! The P9000 measures 5.6 x 3.5 x 1.2 inches and is definitely a very bulky phone. It comes with a 1.3 mega pixel camera and has a 30GB hard disk! Yes we are talking about a device which is almost a computer and yet a phone. You can call it a handheld capable of making voice calls.
The handheld device also comes with a Bluetooth but does not have the primitive Infrared which is not even needed nowadays. On the whole we think this is where the future lies and we will be seeing more of these in the coming years, but lighter ones ofcourse.
Tags: 3g cdma, bluetooth, samsung sph, wimax
The ‘Capital Market Days’ in Amsterdam gave Nokia the platform to announce 4 new handsets in order to compete with the latest range of Motorola and RIM phones. Motorola and RIM have announced that they will be launching over 5 new phones in the holiday season and that has got Nokia to come out with these new phones.
The release of new models does not always mean that they will go well with consumers. We are pretty skeptical about the latest ones they have announced in the press conference. One of them is the entry level Nokia 2626 and it comes with Xpress-on covers with various color combinations, FM Radio and a color display. The phone is going to be priced at around $100 and decent for the price.
The other 3 phones are all marked for the mid-range category and they have nothing ‘special’ in them. Just the usual run of the mill kind of features and design from Nokia. This is where is gets really dull. The phones look very similar to the old ones in the market and have just a few advancements in terms of technology and options. The Nokia 6086 is a Quad band GSM phone and an UMA enabled camera. This one will cost you around 200 euros. The Nokia 6290 comes with a Symbian OS and it is 3G enabled costing you just over 325 euros plus tax.
The Nokia 6300 is the only one which stands out from the pack. The phone has a monoblock design and is only 13mm thick adding new dimension since Nokia does not have any ‘thin’ handsets out in the market.
Tags: 3g, motorola, nokia 6290, nokia 6300, quad band, rim
