Mobspecs

Phone Information
The Nokia N800 is the long awaited upgrade of the popular Nokia 770 Internet Tablet anmd uses the Maemo Linux platform which has been developed by Nokia. The Nokia N800 uses the very latest third generation of Maemo “Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition” which adds a few new features to the 2006 edition.

The N800 is almost the same size as the 770 and measures 75 x 144 x 13mm and weighs 230g in its protective case which is not too bad for a piece of hardware like this. The Nokia N800 has the same excelled 800 x 480 pixel display which is a very high resolution display. In addition the N800 has a webcam and improvements to the tablets WiFi and Bluetooth implementation. The Nokia N800 also accepts a wide variety of memory cards, including RS-MMS, miniSD, microSD and MMCmobile units, which gives you a great choice of media to use.

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Review by: Duncan W From: England 29th June 2007
It comes with a stylus but besides entering URLs and login info the first time(it can save logins for future visits), you can navigate the web and read just by using the 5-way navigating pad on the left side of the device.

It includes two SD slots and can be used as a video and MP3 player.

It runs on Linux OS, with a nice graphical desktop developed by Nokia

You can install dozens of third party applications, most free, including a spreadsheet (Gnumeric), an enhanced media player dubbed “Canola” that makes the device look and act like an iPod, and it’s rumoured that Nokia is having Skype port its software to the device as well.

(Battery life is between 2.5 and 4 hours of continuous use when logged in via Wi-Fi (which can be a power hog). If you let kick in, the battery can last for a couple days without recharging).
Rating: 5/5

The Sony Ericsson W660i is a Walkman phone and a light weight 3G phone with a 2″ 176 x 220 pixel display, a 2 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, video calling, stereo Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a 512MB memory stick in the box, an FM radio and lots of other multimedia functions build in to the phone.

The W660i is very similar to the Sony Ericsson W610i apart from the fact it has 3G. The Sony Ericsson W660i also has an email client, web browser, RSS reader and the normal software that comes with a Walkman branded phone.

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Sony Ericsson W660i Spec
Available:	Out Now
Network:	GSM Tri Band 900 / 1800 / 1900 + UMTS 2100
Data:	GPRS + UMTS (3G)
Screen:	176 x 220 pixels in 262k colours
Camera:
Size:	102 x 46 x 15mm and 93g
Memory:	Phonebook : 1000 Internal(MB) : 16Mb Expansion : Memory Stick Micro (M2) (512 MB included), up to 1GB
Bluetooth:	Yes
Music:	Audio Support - AAC, AAC+, E-AAC+, MP3, M4A, 3GP, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WAV, G-MIDI 1, SP-MIDI, RealAudio 8, eMelody, iMelody, RHz, XMF, Mobile XMF, WMA
Infra-red:	No
Polyphonic:	Yes
Software:	Java (J2ME) Yes ,MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1 WAP Yes Ver 2.0 Platform / OS Proprietary Browser XHTML/ HTML (Netfront 3.3), RSS Reader Predictive Text Entry T9 PIM Application Alarm clock, Business card exchange, Calculator, Calendar, Notes, Stopwatch, Tasks, Timer Other Application Walkman player 2.0, Disc2Phone
Battery life:	2.5 hours talk (3G) and 15 days standby

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W660i Review by: Raymond From: England On: 13th June 2007
The Sony Ericsson W660i is a good looking and feature packed mobile and does everything you would expect from a walkman phone. I have had the W660i for two weeks now and no problems to report yet, I am on O2 contract and reception is also very good, far better than my last mobile on the O2 network.
Rating: 5/5

Samsung U600 Phone Information
The Samsung U600 is a slim and very stylish slider phone which is a member of the Samsung Ultra Edition II range of handsets. The u600 is known as the Samsung U600 Ultra Edition 10.9 which is due to its casing being only 10.9mm in thickness thus ultra slim.

The Samsung Ultra Edition II range includes other slim and attractive mobile phones including the Samsung U100 Ultra Edition 5.9, Samsung U300 Ultra Edition 9.6 and the Samsung U700 Ultra Edition 12.1. The U600 comes in a fresh designed casing with a nice and smooth slide mechanism which reveals the lovely metal etched keypad.

The mobile phone comes with a large 2.2 Inch 240 x 320 pixels and 262k colour screen which can be viewed when the phone is in its open or closed position. This is a very stylish phone open or closed. The Samsung U600 is available in either a sapphire blue, garnet red, platinum metal or a copper gold colour.

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Review by: Barrie West From: England On: 24th July 2007
I like the U600 very much but I’ve already returned 2 and am now on my 3rd. The problem has been the same on each one, whilst texting in predictive text mode the phone freezes and then restarts itself. The phone seems to be ok in normal text mode but when you’re paying around £250 for a phone you expect it to be up to the job. The camera is brilliant with lots of different functions compared to my D600, if it wasn’t for returning 2 phones already I would of given it a 5 star.
Rating: 2/5

Review by: E Chung From: England On: 21st June 2007
I have had my Samsung U600 since 1st May, and so far so good, no problems with it what-so-ever. It seems to be a really reliable little phone.

The phone is quite slim as you may already know and that is what you will be paying for mainly. The phone has all the usual features.

I recently had a N95 which I sold because the battery ran out daily and often crashes, not to mention the annoying loss slider! Apart from that the phone was amazing, it could do some much!

The slider on the Samsung U600 is- just the way it should be!

So having switched to a Samsung U600, I do miss some of the features from the N95. However, I have grown custom to the U600 as it is really stylish and compact. The N95 is a bit chunky so if you have it in your trouser pocket it feels really uncomfortable and looks a bit weird if you know what I mean. The U600 is the exact opposite.

The best thing about it must be the size, you won’t even notice it in your pocket. Sometimes I have to feel my pocket just to make sure its there.

The battery on this phone is pretty decent too, on average you will need to charge it once every 3 days so you don’t have to worry about whether it the battery will run out later on. There are 3 bars, one bar is the equivalent to 1 day standby or 1 hour talktime, handy to know if you make a lot of calls.

Email is simple, you can receive your emails within seconds. Once the emails have downloaded onto the phone, the U600 automatically disconnects from your web server so minimizing your cost.

If you like to surf the web on your mobile, the large screen is definately a plus point.

Samsung have made a great phone when you consider how much stuff the phone can do when it is so small. The annoying thing about this phone is that it doesn’t have 3G. I know it isn’t essential but for the money you would expect it to have it.

Samsung are bringing out the Samsung U700 soon which is the next one up from this, and it has 3G. I can guess it will cost around the 300 mark when first launched.

P.S. Apple are bringing out their first handset, its called an iPhone. It’s a must have!!! Expect it in UK around September time but the price may burn a hole in your pocket - the 4GB version is expected to cost 350.00, the 8GB version is expected to cost 450.00 (still less than the N95!!!)
Rating: 5/5

Review by: Alex Hayes From: England On: 3rd June 2007
I have had the U600 mobile phone for a month now and have just had a new one sent to me as the keys keys on the keypad kept freezing. However my new phone works very well and looks the business.
Rating: 5/5

Hot on the trail of Samsung’s i8510, yesterday LG showed us its own 8-megapixel camera phone, the LG Renoir. LG tells us this is its first phone to keep its original development codename, whereas the LG Pony and LG Pigeon brand names sadly never made it to market. Seriously, we’re not kidding.

The Renoir will be the first 8-megapixel camera phone to boast a touchscreen and from our initial testing the large screen seems very responsive. The interface is similar to the LG Viewty’s, with a series of finger-friendly icons filling the menu. There’s also a widget bar, which you can get to from the start page, giving you fast access to apps.

Features-wise the Renoir is pretty competent — there’s a Web browser that lets you zoom in and out of pages and open tabs, an MP3 player with Dolby Mobile that supposedly gives you a better playback experience, and a video player that supports DivX, so you can watch films on the go. But it’s the camera that’s the star of the show.

The big number might be a marketing gimmick, but we’re initially impressed with the quality of pictures you can capture with the Renoir’s 8-megapixel snapper. You can shoot shots at up to ISO 1,600 and there’s a series of extras, including face detection, smile detection and even a beauty shot that claims to get rid of blemishes on people’s faces.

The 2009 CES is not necessarily the place to launch mobile phones (the salon Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, is generally more appropriate) but this does not prevent companies from disclosing some gadgets hybrids.

That is what will make the South Korean LG Electronics with its 3G phone LG shows GD910. The device will have a touch display 1.4 “used to operate the gadget, with a touch keypad for calls, while two buttons on the side completes the management of the clock.

Technical demonstration at LG Electronics

While having the appearance of a , the LG GP910 is nonetheless a true mobile HSDPA 7.2 Mbps with a small camera in front for videoconferencing. Among its features, we note the presence of Bluetooth wireless connectivity and the ability to play MP3 files.

The gadget should have a voice playback system TTS (Text to Speech), which would avoid having to decipher its SMS on a small screen, and not to exceed the 13.9 mm thick. It was not until the 2009 CES in Las Vegas in early January to learn more.

For LG, it is a first demonstration of integration of mobile telephony in the “wearable”, highlighting its expertise in miniaturization and design. Other products, just as successful, should follow. And it is in Europe shows that the 3G phone will make his first steps a little later in the year.

The iPhone is a 3G smartphone stars of the year 2008 and it will sell over 500,000 copies in France by the end of the year, although some are tempted to wait and see what offer SFR and Bouygues after the exclusivity of Orange.

And like any smart terminal, one might be tempted to want to protect from scratches and shock by an appropriate case. Several accessory manufacturers offer a complete range of protective materials and in different forms.

At Bluetrade, it proposes a case Powermate dual purpose. On the one hand, it is a case silicone coating slip the iPhone, which cushion the impact, including slices, and protect most of the hull.

Etui and 2200 mAh battery
But the case loads Powermate also an additional 2200 mAh battery which is announced as actually doubling the aircraft’s flight. It can be used to power the phone or to recharge its battery.

This may make it possible to exploit the full functionality of the iPhone 3G when traveling, especially since the case has a flap to hold the device to the horizontal in order to watch videos.

This new version of the Powermate case is specially dedicated to the iPhone 3G, regardless of its storage (a version for the iPhone 2G already exists). It is available in white or black for a price of 39 €.

NFC (Near Field Communication) is a way of wireless short-range derivative of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). This is one of the major future trends in mobile telephony as it will add interactivity between mobile and their environment.

An NFC phone can indeed serve as an electronic wallet, identification badge, collector of specific content (advertising material from a poster, for example), Intelligent Key (hoteliers in love …), etc. .

Standardization and development of services

For this revolution take shape, it is necessary that the environment is established, both in the standardization of services and equipment. On the first point, the NFC Forum is working to establish the necessary framework and gradually complete specifications, including communication protocols between SIM card and NFC chip (with the SWP or Single Wire Protocol, for example).
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On services, experiments come validate the procedures and collect impressions of user-testers, to a greater or lesser extent. The side of contactless payment, there is the initiative Pay Mobile in France that meets since the end of 2007 banking institutions and operators to test the NFC mobile payment to merchants and supermarkets.

On the other hand, forums and associations have been created in 2008 to bring together the various actors in the field and share information. This is the case Forum Services without contact, initiated by Luc Chatel, Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs, which oversees projects on the NFC or the French Association of contactless mobile ( AFSCM), which includes all three French mobile operators Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, and ensures that all work in the same direction (in terms of interoperability services, in particular).

It is also terminals
Finally, all this can not work without hardware: payment terminals, modules NFC and NFC compatible mobile phones. Currently, ,,offer models other than in very limited variations of existing products, used in the experiments underway.

It should be noted that Nokia offers two years of comprehensive NFC mobile terminals, the latest model is the Nokia 6212 NFC Classic, a 3G phone whose production is scheduled for late this year and should be used for pre-commercial pilot.

The harmonization of these three major centers of NFC (standardization, services, equipment) is not easy. However, the market for NFC can not take off until these three elements have not reached a certain level of maturity.

And that’s not counting on the interests of different actors and their desire to control or even lock the market to their advantage, at the risk of delay off the market.

The ThinkPad W700ds is a mobile work station for graphic artists, photographers or developers integrating a second screen of 10.6-inch WXGA (horizontal display with a resolution of 768 x 1280). The secondary screen rotates on an angle of 30 degrees to provide a display similar to a work station fixed.

In terms of the embedded components W700ds based on a Core 2 Quad (2.26 GHz engraved in 45 nm), 4 to 8 GB DDR3 graphics card and Nvidia Quadro FX 3700M, two hard drives can be configured RAID.

Connection includes three video ports (DVI, Display Port and VGA) for connecting other sedentary screen mode. In situations of mobility this workstation consume about 75 watts, which gave it an autonomy of about 2 hours. Finally professionals appreciate the presence of a Wacom tablet next to the trackpoint.

The ThinkPad W700ds (click to enlarge)

Availability and price
The ThinkPad W700ds will be available beginning in January, for about $ 3 600, the European price has not yet been notified.

If the Windows Mobile smartphone Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 has been assembled by HTC, rumors suggest that Chinese production of the terminals will be assigned to other assemblers. Earlier this week, Mobinnova, a subsidiary of Foxconn Electronics, was approached as the new provider.

But the company would not be the only contact with Sony Ericsson to obtain future contracts. New rumors emphasize that at least two other assemblers attempt to negotiate orders.

A second Windows Mobile smartphone end 2009?
The joint Japanese-Swedish company is in final discussions with three manufacturers, including Foxconn and Pegatron, resulting from OEM Asustek group. However, HTC is not part of the candidates for an upcoming Windows Mobile smartphone.

The sources cited by Digitimes stressed that negotiations will end by the first quarter of 2009 and the mobile terminal that will emerge will not be available until late 2009 at best. This suggests that Sony Ericsson will release first Android smartphone before launching a new Windows Mobile phone.

The court in Hangzhou (China) has condemned the South Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics to pay 50 million yuan (5.2 million euros) in Chinese manufacturer Holley Communications and stop the marketing of mobile phones using its technology Chinese soil.

Samsung has been convicted for violating a patent held by Holley Communications and on the possibility of operating mobile on both GSM and CDMA, two normally incompatible standards.

Favoritism in the air?
According to Holley, Samsung sold more than 700,000 terminals using its technology while it is patented since 2002. The complaint was filed in April 2007 and reviewed in May, after the Office of Chinese patent registration was upheld.

Samsung has not commented on the decision but had indicated that it respond on appeal if the decision was unfavorable. Note that this measure comes as 3G licenses are about to be issued in China, which will trigger significant investment in equipment and terminals.

According to the Associated Press, Holley Communications is part of Chinese companies have much to gain because of their local business. Thence to see an attempt to favor leaving him a free hand in this business, especially since the company received government subsidies, there is not that some have already passed.

And Samsung is not the only target of the alleged violation of a patent dual mode Holley. A fits

The HTC Mobile of Taiwan, already a specialist in Windows Mobile products, has positioned itself very early on the segment of smartphones Google Android, by being the first to introduce a mobile device marketed as the T-Mobile G1.

Many players are expected to follow and start to turn in 2009, using the mobile platform from Google. HTC expects to sell 1 million units of T-Mobile G1 by the end of the year in the United States and the United Kingdom, which is a good result, but remains well below what Apple succeeded with the iPhone 3G model.

Battle of the platforms in 2009
And in the words of one representative from HTC, which the Smart House website, sales of smartphones currently Android would penalize those of its Windows Mobile smartphones. The attraction of new OS, its open source and promises that surround it (performance, mobile applications) could cannibalize the Microsoft operating system, which remains behind ergonomics when designing versatile smartphones .

While Research in Motion and Apple benefit of the public support this type of device, Microsoft may struggle to convince more than the public. Certainly, the response is provided with Windows Mobile 6.5 and longer term with Windows Mobile 7, but the time of these updates leave the field open to other platforms, new or already established.

However, many manufacturers offer in 2009 in both terminals Android and Windows Mobile. But the effect of plateau observed this year for the Microsoft operating system (18 million licenses sold, against 20 million the previous year) could be extended further next year.

The Japanese electronics company Omron is developing a new technique for thin layer of backlit LCD screens of mobile phones.

Its subsidiary Omron Precision Technology has developed a light guide plate finer with a new manufacturing process. Usually, this piece is made with injection molding or a transfer of heat, but here the thin layer is formed by extrusion. The shape of the guide obtained is such that it acts like a lens at one end to bend light rays from the LED (light-emitting diodes).

The result is a light-guide of 0.23 mm thick, or half the thickness of those of liquid crystal displays current firm.

Combined with a layer of dispersion and a layer of prism, the light-guide system forms a backlight with a thickness of 0.59 mm record for an LCD screen mobile phone * 3 inches diagonal (7.62 cm ). This thickness represents a 30% relative to the backlight the thinnest currently produced by Omron.

This system backlight can be distorted, which will allow Omron to include it in the near future to its LCDs (Liquid Crystal Display) flexible.
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Sling Media unveils updated versions of its SlingPlayer Mobile on Windows Mobile Professional, which means that devices with touch screen and non touch will benefit from these updates. A major additions to this new version is support for resolutions 800 x 480, 640 x 480, 400 x 240 and 320 x 320. The 15 phones are officially compatible with Sling Media: –

Sprint Treo 800W
Sony Ericsson X1 Continue Reading…

Shazam is a provider of mobile music application that has recently included support iPod touch 2G iPhone to its application, and so far, the Shazam is already available on more than 3 million iPhones. Some of the new features include information on artists, discographies, biographies, track and album. It’s nice to see that developers were given the penalty to make the software compatible with a wide range of devices.

“There has been a tremendous response to Shazam’s iPhone app and we’ve received really positive feedback from our user base including suggestions on how we could make the Shazam experience even better,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “We’ve turned this feedback into new features and powerful new ways to capture and share music moments and stories. We are delighted to offer an improved experience to the millions of users who are passionate about their music journey.”

The new features include:

• Support for 2nd generation iPod touch (external microphone required). Continue Reading…

… the news last week. The information jostle at a breakneck pace and it is not always easy to find or simply do not miss the important moments. To start the week and better decipher what lies ahead, here is a summary of current events that marked last week.

Android and iPhone remain at the heart of current mobile, as well as the contactless mobile, where players want to expedite the movement. Meanwhile, technical innovations promise mountains and marvels mobile phones of tomorrow.

No fewer than 14 new members join the Open Handset Alliance e, the promotion of Google Android. And not least, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, but Garmin ARM, Toshiba or Asustek. New terminals or new products in mobile Android in perspective …

With 300 million mobile applications downloaded from the App Store, Apple demonstrates the importance of content associated with a terminal adapter. Especially as publishers follow suit and offer quality applications.

But the exclusive right to sell the iPhone by Orange is not appropriate for Bouygues Telecom. This week that the review of the complaint filed last year will tell whether the situation must change, which could also benefit SFR.
To accelerate the adoption of NFC (Near Field Communications) for mobile contactless payment, it is activated to shorten the timetable. The group Musketeers expresses its readiness to launch such a service in its brands from 2009.
The fourth 3G license again speak of it through an interview with Martin Bouygues in the newspaper Les Echos. According to him, making a fourth entering Free would not benefit to the market and would be unfair compared with actors in place. Continue Reading…