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Toshiba roll out two super-slim smartphones, TG02 and K01

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:09:27 +0000

Toshiba TG02

A leaked roadmap we told you about a few months ago, claimed the TG02 was to be splash resistant. Unfortunately, there is still nothing official on that.

When it comes to the other new Toshiba device, there are lots of questions waiting for an answer. What we can tell you about the Toshiba K01 at this point is it packs a side-slide QWERTY keyboard and a 4.1″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA resolution. Its design has been redone since we last saw it but – what’s more important – size is now different as well. The K01 was said to be 15mm thin but it actually is even slimmer – only 12.9mm. How about that?

Toshiba K01

Sadly, there is still no word on the pricing and availability of either handset.

LG GD510 Pop is an innovative and compact touchscreen bar

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:31:38 +0000

LG is trying to build on the success of the LG KP500 Cookie and have announced the LG GD510 Pop to do just that. They advertise it as the most compact 3-inch touchscreen bar ever – and keeping in mind how tiny the Cookie was, that should stand for something.

LG used consumer research to figure out what should have been obvious from the number of Cookies sold – people really, really like affordable full touchscreen phones. The design process of the LG GD510 went pretty much like this – design a high-end handset, then drop all the features most people don’t use to arrive at a mid-range price.

The LG GD510 Pop

LG reminds us that they were the first to release a fully touch operated phone – the LG Prada, though that’s not quite true (this is more like it).

Anyway, to back up their claims they demonstrated how innovative they can be. In tune with the strive for simplicity, the GD510 Pop has just one button but it serves different functions, easily distinguishable by the backlight of the button – either green or red. It can be used as Call or End key, Menu or Cancel key, you get the idea.

Anyway, the LG Pop has a brushed aluminum frame and an TV-set inspired extra thin bezel around the screen – only 4.8 mm. Speaking of the screen, it has a 3″ diagonal and WQVGA resolution (240 x 400 pixels). The GD510 Pop also sports a roomy 8GB internal memory and a 3MP camera.

There’s more – the exact specs of the GD510 are still shady, but three of the promo shots feature a solar panel. It seems that the special back cover with the solar panel will be optional.

LG GD510 Pop flaunts the optional solar panel

Here’s an official promo video, which however doesn’t reveal anything more about the handset:

Initially, the LG GD510 Pop will be available in Europe, starting mid-October and expanding to other markets later on. The price will be different for each market, so it’ll be announced individually.

Nokia 8800 Erdos runs Symbian, has 5MP camera, Wi-Fi and GPS

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:55:03 +0000

Nokia 8800 series of luxury phones have always focused on high quality materials and superior build quality, while holding back on the spec sheet. With the Nokia 8800 Erdos this reputation is about to change.

First off, “Erdos” is just a code name so expect that to change at some point. And second – this won’t be an Arte. The Arte phones have had largely the same design, differing in materials only. The 8800 Erdos changes not only the design but also the way the phones are built.

The Nokia Ardos body will be constructed out of a single piece of “bullet silver”. This apparently is marketing talk for stainless steel, so you probably can’t kill a werewolf with it, but carving out the body out of a single piece of metal is all the rage with high-end laptops and the ridiculously expensive luxury phones.

The screen of the Erdos however is covered with regular scratch-proof glass, rather than sapphire, which is the usual weapon of choice in such cases. The glass covering the screen though turns silver when the display is off, giving the impression that the phone is a single slab of stainless steel. The screen itself is an OLED unit with QVGA resolution and a diagonal of 2.4 inches.

Nokia 8800 Erdos

The high-end design of the Nokia 8800 Erdos includes a rather unique feature too – it’s a slider like the rest of its siblings, but the keypad raises to the level of the display when you slide it out. This should make the keys of the top row much more accessible.

Sounds good already, but we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet – the Nokia 8800 Erdos is the first of its breed to be a full-on smartphone. It’ll run the Symbian OS S60 and feature Wi-Fi and A-GPS. The internal memory is 8GB, though there’s no card slot.

The camera is the best in the luxury class with its 5 megapixels and Carl Zeiss lens with autofocus. There’s a dual-LED flash too.

Rounding off the specs is the reasonably compact size of the phone. The 8800 Erdos measures 116.9 x 50,3 x 15.0 mm, though its weight is kept on the hush-hush. There is also a dedicated noise reduction microphone on the back.

The Nokia 8800 Erdos will be available in October with tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) and dual-band 3G/HSPA. The price is the other thing missing from the rumored specs, though this could easily top the price point of the Gold Arte.

Oh, and here’s a video to give you a better impression of the design:

Source

Rumored LG BL42 officially revealed as BL20 New Chocolate

admin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:25:54 +0000

Image and specs of the unannounced LG BL20 have just been spotted in an LG brochure at the IFA tech show in Berlin. The device has already leaked as BL42, but its product name is obviously BL20 New Chocolate.

A slider with touch keys below the display, the BL20 New Chocolate is quite reminiscent of the original LG Chocolate. There’s no touchscreen like the LG BL40 New Chocolate that we previewed today but it has a 5 megapixel auto focus camera.

LG BL20 New Chocolate as leaked by LG themselves

The LG BL20 New Chocolate has quad-band GSM support and offers a 2.4-inch 262K-color QVGA display and no S-class UI, which is obviously reserved for LG touch phones only. There’s stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and a microSD card slot for expanding the built-in 130MB of memory. Fast data transfers are handled through 3G and HSDPA 3.6Mbps.

As we already told you, the LG BL20 New Chocolate has leaked before in some live shots but back then it was rumored as LG BL42 Chocolate. We sure hope that LG will soon step up and unveil the device officially.

LG BL42 next to the original Chocolate

Source

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 gets official, holds no surprises

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:32:21 +0000

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 received its official announcement today. Boasting Windows Mobile 6.5 and relying heavily on the X Panels UI, the XPERIA X2 flaunts an 8 megapixel camera and a 3.2-inch touchscreen.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 was eagerly expected and finally has its moment. The new XPERIA will come directly with Windows Mobile 6.5 on board with the XPERIA panels integrated into the user interface. The long rumored 3.5-inch OLED screen turns to be false, as the X2 has a 3.2-inch WVGA TFT one.

The rest of the specs include full sliding QWERTY keyboard, 8.1 megapixel camera with VGA@30fps recording and LED flash, all sorts of connectivity options (HSDPA, Wi-Fi with DLNA, GPS, Bluetooth) including a 3.5mm audio jack and TV-out (cable bundled in the box), stereo speakers and a microSD card slot (4GB card in the package).

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2

The CPU still remains unknown, while the memory is crystal clear – 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM and 110 megabytes of user storage. The XPERIA X2 also comes with XviD video support.

Here’s an official video that displays the way the XPERIA Panel UI has evolved in X2:

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 will hit the shelves sometime in early Q4 this year. We suppose the launch will be in October, considering the recent Microsoft’s announcement of the Windows Mobile 6.5 availability. There is no word on pricing yet.

Source

Samsung S3650 Corby now official

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:30:33 +0000

The Samsung S3650 Corby just got official and it’s dressed to impress with its Fashion Jackets and ready for a night out, partying in social networks. With a price tag of 150 euro and attractive design, Corby aims to be affordable and appealing to the young audience.

The basic specs are reminiscent of the Samsung S5230 Star, but Corby maintains its own identity very well. Starting off with the physical dimension of the S3650, it’s 103 x 56.5 x 12.0 mm big and weighs 93 grams. Packed in that compact shell are a 2.8″ QVGA capacitive touchscreen (yes, capacitive) and a 2-megapixel camera.

Samsung S3650 Corby

MP3 player, microSD card slot for cards up to 8GB and a FM radio with RDS keep the S3650 rocking, and the WMV support is a really nice touch. A USB port and Bluetooth 2.1 will aid in loading up the phone with music from your computer, but unfortunately, the USB port is the proprietary Samsung one.

The Samsung S3650 is a globetrotter with its quad-band GSM and EDGE support, thought it’s not the speediest one – it’s 2G only. The 960-mAh battery should give it good standby and talk time numbers though nothing official was quoted.

On the social side, Samsung Corby offers Facebook, MySpace and Twitter integration and the list goes on. YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket are Corby’s playground as well. You can update your status on the various social networking sites and receive updates from your friends via a simple pop-up notification feature.

Samsung S3650 Corby shows off its festive colors

The Samsung S3650 also incorporates a lot of the know-how that went into the likes of the Samsung Jet, like one finger zoom, smart unlock and as with any recent touch-based phone from Samsung – TouchWiz user interface and a great deal of widgets. It also offers something called Cartoon UI, which is described as “a highly stylised graphical menu and wallpaper that adapts according to handset functionality”.

One of the main things that Samsung hopes will attract people to the Corby (aside from its bargain price point) is the interchangeable back covers. The S3650 is available in bright colors, Jamaican Yellow, Cupid Pink, Minimal White, and Festival Orange (with more to come in the future), but can get fancy too. Included in the box will be two additional back covers – the Fashion Jackets.

Corby’s front is black, and it’s the back that receives the vivid color treatment. One of the Fashion Jackets is black, making the entire phone black (and black is elegant, right?), while the other one is more interesting – a unique pattern design color.

Check out our studio photos of Samsung S3650 Corby:

The Samsung S3650 Corby will be available in Europe from mid-September for about 150 euro (215 US dollars). No word on its availability outside Europe just yet.

Source: GSMArena.com

Nokia N900 is now officially outed

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:02:24 +0000

Well, it seem Nokia have something even more exciting to announce at the upcoming Nokia World, so they’ve decided to fire early with the N900 tablet/smartphone announcement. N900 is a continuation of Nokia Nseries tablets. This time they’ve stepped out of the ultra portable computing turf and have ventured in the territory of Nokia Communicators.

Running on the new Linux-based Maemo 5 OS, the Nokia N900 power lies in the capable multi-tasking, which should make it stand out even among the ranks of the Symbian smartphones. According to Nokia reps, however, the new Maemo device is not meant to compete with the Nokia Symbian smartphones, but instead cater for different market needs.

With Nokia N900 you’ve got around-the-clock connectivity thanks to Wi-Fi and HSPA. The N900 offers phone features as well allowing full-featured telephony.

Nokia N900 runs on the Linux-based Maemo 5.0 OS

The Nokia N900 packs a powerful ARM Cortex-A8 CPU much like the Apple iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Samsug Omnia HD and offers hardware graphics acceleration and 256MB RAM.

Switching between applications is simple, as all running content is constantly available through the dashboard. The panoramic homescreen can be fully personalized with favorite shortcuts, widgets and applications. We wonder however how many of those features will be available in portrait mode though, as Maemo is Tablet OS that’s hardly been put to use in portrait mode before.

Interaction with the handset is available through the large 3.5-inch touchscreen display with a WVGA resolution (800 x 480 pixels) and the 3-row QWERTY keypad. The touch screen also offers a virtual on-screen keyboard and operating with a stylus is possible, though one doesn’t seem to be included with the N900 itself.

Nokia N900 is smarter than most other smartphones

Thanks to the web browser powered by Mozilla technology, websites should look just as they do on a desktop computer. Online videos and interactive applications are not a problem as the Maemo OS has full Adobe Flash 9.4 support.

The Nokia N900 has 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card. Other features include a GPS receiver with Ovi Maps, an FM transmitter, a 3.5mm audio jack with TV-out function, Bluetooth and DivX/XviD video playback support.

For photography on the go, the Maemo software and the N900 come with a new tag cloud user interface that helps users tag and share photos and videos more easily. The 5 megapixel with Carl Zeiss optics is also capable of recording 16:9 video with a resolution of up to 848×480 pixels@25fps.

Here’s the official demo video of the Nokia N900 where you can check how the new cloud photo tagging system works among other things:

The Nokia N900 should be available from October this year with an estimated retail price of 500 euro before taxes and subsidies.

Source

Official photos of N900 and N97 Mini lift the curtain of Nokia World

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:23:48 +0000

With only several days remaining to the start of the Nokia World event, we can already feel the excitement building up. We already got one announcement yesterday just to warm us up but we are certainly hoping that more will follow once things get rolling in Stuttgart on 1 September.

After the preview that popped up yesterday we were quite confident in predicting that the Nokia N97 Mini will be one of the new devices to be announced at this year’s Nokia World. The trimmed-down version of the company multimedia flagship has now made another unofficial appearance, through a leaked press shot. It certainly doesn’t give any more information that we already have, but it’s another confirmation that the actual launch of the handset cannot be far away.

Nokia N97 mini

The other device that made an appearance in similar fashion is the Nokia N900 former tablet. Again previewed ahead of announcement, the Maemo-based smartphone is certainly quite far ahead in its development and it will hardly be a surprise if we see it announced next week. And it certainly looks like a real beauty at those official shots, right?

Nokia N900

So stay tuned as the Nokia World unveils next week and tells us if there is more left to unveil.

Source

Full touch Nokia 5230 announced, 3G and GPS onboard

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:29:39 +0000

Nokia are obviously getting more and more serious about their touchscreen portfolio. Hot on the heels of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, they have announced the Nokia 5230 – an entry-level touchscreen handset. The newcomer has the same dimensions as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic but looses the Wi-Fi and has only a 2 megapixel camera.

Much like the Nokia 5800, the Nokia 5230 sports a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels, FM radio, 3.5 mm audio jack and microSD card slot. The camera has been downgraded to 2 megapixel resolution but manages the decent VGA@30fps video recording.

Nokia 5230 runs the latest Symbian S60 5th edition and is powered by the same battery as 5800 – a 1320 mAh one, which is good 320 mAh larger that that of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. According to the manufacturer the 5230 will be capable of 33 hours of non-stop music playback.

Nokia 5230

The final noteworthy features of the the 5230 include Ovi Maps and social networking integration such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

The available inbox colors for the Nokia 5230 are black and white for the front panel and red, pink, blue, yellow, silver and dark silver for the rear covers.

The available inbox colors

The handset will be available in Q4 this year for a recommended price of 150 euro before taxes or subsides. It will also be distributed in a Comes With Music package in certain markets, priced at 259 euro before subsides and taxes.

And here is a short promo video of the new handset, that underlines, what Nokia consider to be its key features.

Source

Bell Releases The Palm Pre

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:59:29 +0000

Bell customers should be happy to know that Bell is ready to release the Palm Pre. The carrier has recently released a new ad for the smartphone. In case you didn’t know, the Palm Pre supports EV-DO connectivity, a 320 x 480 pixels multi-touch display, GPS, Wi-Fi, a full QWERTY keyboard and the WebOS platform. Video after the jump.