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.

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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.

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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.

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Windows Mobile seems to be making the headlines quite often these days. While the upcoming WinMo 6.5 is getting closer than ever to release, a leaked software build of the next version of TouchFLO 3D by HTC has been previewed on video.

Bringing much more pleasant looks and boosting the usability of the underlying OS greatly over the last couple of generation of HTC devices, the TouchFLO 3D is certainly a favorite around the office (strictly WinMo context speaking though). And the next reincarnation looks even more appealing bringing more color and some more nice touches to user-friendliness.

The most notable changes at first sight are the new icons that are used for changing the tabs as well as the new image gallery and music albums browsing. There are also nicely large and thumbable shortcuts added on a number of tabs such as the Internet tab, the People’s tab and most notably the Home tab. Those last shortcuts allow you to bring almost any function of your handset at only a click distance.

The clock on the Home tab has also been modified and is now almost identical to the one found on the HTC Hero. The icons also seem heavily influenced those on the Android-running handset. Changes have also affected the Calendar tab and the Weather tab, which as the reviewer says is better integrated with the interface now.

If there’s anything bothering about the videos it’s certainly the sluggishness of the interface, when demonstrated on the HTC Touch HD and the HTC Touch Diamond2. Yet we are pretty certain that when all the i-dotting and t-crossing is done, it will be a whole lot more smoother on the rumored HTC Leo, which should be the first officially released handset to come with the new TouchFLO 3D UI.

Here’s a brief summary of the most notable changes that the TouchFLO 3D 2.6 brings around:

• New colorful icons
• Local weather information added to the Home tab
• Most links throughout the tabs are bigger and more thumbable
• Image gallery tab now has landscape mode
• Peoples tab is more thumbable with no need for flicking
• Music player tab has landscape album art browsing
• Calendar tab has several new view modes
• Web browser tab displays saved links as thumbable buttons
• Settings tab features even more extended settings and digs even deeper in the underlying WinMo than before

But if you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details, we’d bet you’d like to see the demo videos themselves.

Detailed TouchFLO 3D ver. 2.5 preview:

Further changes in TouchFLO 3D ver. 2.6:

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Today TomTom has finally released their voice guided turn-by-turn SatNav app for the iPhone. The app was the only featured SatNav software at the presentation of the iPhone OS 3.0, but it’s the last to arrive.

TomTom for iPhone is available in four regional packages – New Zealand (94.99 US dollars), U.S & Canada (99.99 US dollars), Australia (79.99 Australian dollars) and TomTom Western Europe (139.99 US dollars). Yeah, life in iEurope is expensive, we know!

Unfortunately, the TomTom press release doesn’t say a word about the Car Kit bundle, which includes a charging car stand for the iPhone. Let’s remind you that it was recently spotted in an online store at a pre-order price of about 200 US dollars.

Official UI screenshots from the TomTom GPS software

So, Navigon were first to release their SatNav software called Mobile Navigator, then it was Sygic’s turn followed by iGO MyWay 2009 and finally TomTom rounded up the expensive SatNav solutions offered by the majors. Perhaps Garmin will jump on the bandwagon as well, but we are yet to hear about that really.

You can also check out this video of the TomTom for iPhone uploaded on YouTube.

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