Cool Smart Phone

12 Jan 2009

Every now and then we stumble across a little leak in the mobile phone world. Again it's HTC and... well, it's not so much of a leak, more of a huge great waterfall of handsets. I mean, seriously.

The line-up for 2009 looks hot with handsets for every possible need. There's phones with keyboards, phones which seem to be modelled on the G1 and loads of updated versions of existing favourites. Words don't do this justice, so I'm just going to say "READ ON" and stop talking now.

12 Jan 2009

Do you feel like the odd one out ? All your mates have got the iPhone but you decided to be different and go Windows Mobile. How about a tool which will let you stream your iTunes library direct to your phone? Like the sound of that? Read on.

Didiom is something we've covered before but is now available for WinMo touch-screen devices with VGA screens like the Diamond It's not just iTunes stuff though, the app will let you navigate and play through your home computer's music library wirelessly. Right now their beta is even more attractive with a cash bonus to reward prepaid users who purchase MP3 songs. There's up to 35% bonus towards music downloads up for grabs. Ran Assaf, Didiom's founder and CEO states...

"Didiom brings together what belongs together -- placeshifting and over-the-air purchasing. Our goal is to meet the growing demand for placeshifting, and push interactive experiences beyond the handset itself with a minimal burden on the user."

Try it out for yourself or watch this video to see it in operation.

11 Jan 2009

Just a few days ago the guys at o2 were kind enough to loan me the XDA Zest. It's a handset we've been tracking for some time and we rarely get to handle Asus-made kit like this. The Zest is powered by a 624Mhz Marvell TavorP CPU, 256MB ROM, 128 MB SDRAM and has a microSD card slot which is SDHC capable. Running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional it's got a 480x640 screen and great connectivity with EDGE/GPRS/GSM(900/1800/1900Mhz) and 3G / HSDPA with WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR. Also inside is GPS and two cameras, a 3 megapixel camera (which, I must admit, takes rather nice photos) and a VGA one up front for video calls.

A review of the Zest is right around the corner, however I thought I'd kick things off with this video overview. Check it out on the link or read on for the footage.

11 Jan 2009

Hey, Motorola. Remember them? They used to make Windows Mobile phones. They were quite good too - the MPX200 was a great phone and we kinda miss that Moto magic. This is the Motosurf A3100, a touch-screen device with an omni-directional trackball and "a customizable icon-based carousel" which shows weather, email and news updates plus one-touch access into Facebook.

Specs? Well, you'll looking at a Qualcomm MSM 7201A CPU powering Windows Mobile.1 Pro. There's a QVGA screen, 3 megapixel auto-focus camera and VGA video-calling camera, GPS, 256MB Flash, 128MB RAM and a microSD card slot with HC supporting up to 32GB. For connectivity you've got quad-band EDGE / GPRS and triband 3G / HSDPA and stereo Bluetooth with A2DP. Alas, no WiFi.

This will be arriving in Asia and Latin America in Q1 this year, let's hope it'll appear elsewhere too. Get more pictures below.

09 Jan 2009

The HTC Iolite got leaked on expansys a few days back. The link has gone now but you can see the real thing here at jouwmobiel.nl. Powered by a 528Mhz CPU and running WinMo 6.1 Pro it's got 512MB ROM, 288MB RAM and 3G HSDPA/HSUPA with Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and WiFi connectivity. Around the back is a 3.2 megapixel camera and there's GPS along with a "HTC Footprints" button, which we presume is some sort of geo-tagging system for your photos. You'll navigate with TouchFLO 3D and there's a microSD card slot and with Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP.

According to jouwmobiel.nl it won't be called the Iolite when it appears and will be slid between the Touch 3G and the Touch Diamond in the HTC line-up. It looks almost like the Touch Cruise replacement ?

Palm announce the Pre and new webOS
08 Jan 2009

Palm today announced their new phone and their new direction today. It's this, the "Pre". It's got a curvy slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3 megapixel camera with flash, EVDO Rev A (this isn't for Europe then), WiFi, GPS, gesture area (allowing simple finger movements for navigation), stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) and 8GB of user storage. The screen is a 320x480 pixel 3.1" display and there's also a 3.5mm headphone jack along with a microUSB connector giving you mass storage capabilities.

Inside is webOS which, according to Palm Executive Chairman Ron Rubinstein, will be attractive to anyone coding in HTML, Javascript or CSS. Hmm.. That's a lot of people. Palm's Matias Duarte was keen to promote the physical keyboard (instead of an on-screen one) and showed off the Palm Touchstone charging dock. With this there's no worrying about connection, orientation or fit - just set the phone onto the Touchstone and it'll charge without a connector.

Inside you'll also find a "desktop class browser", POP3 and Exchange server support, instant messaging and an "advanced multimedia experience". The Pre also packs a light sensor (for adjusting screen brightness dynamically), acceleromer and a proximity sensor. Palm need this phone to do well and there's every possibility that it will. Let's hope Microsoft are ready for yet another challenger in the Smartphone arena.

It will be appearing on Sprint in the first half of this year and engadget have managed to get info of a GSM version too.

The Shadow is dead, long live the Shadow
08 Jan 2009

Yup, it looks like the all-new T-Mobile (USA) Shadow will be called the.. err.. T-Mobile Shadow. It's already had a firm hands-on at engadgetmobile.com. Now, we've always thought that the new one would be called the Shadow II (which would make sense following the original Shadow), but it seems that T-Mobile USA isn't having any of it and is simply calling it the "new T-Mobile Shadow".

The non-touch phone will get a TI Omap 260Mhz CPU with 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM and a 320x240 pixel screen. There's also apparently a 2 megapixel camera (oh, how 2007) and quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE with WiFi and Bluetooth. Hmm.. Let's think here. If I didn't mind losing the WiFi capability, what's the difference between the all-new Shadow and the HTC Touch Dual we mentioned earlier? It's got a faster processor and, if you stuck an un-official ROM on there (which we'd never recommend, of course), you'd have something pretty similar?

Orange SPV M3100 - Buy one for £94.50
08 Jan 2009

While we're talking about cheap phones, head on over to Orange Accessories for another great deal. You can get the Orange SPV M3100 / HTC TyTN(reviewed here) for just £94.50. This reconditioned phone will be supplied with a charger, user guide and a Pay As You Go card.

The M3100 is still a decent handset with a 400Mhz Samsung processor, 2 megapixel camera (with macro mode), tri-band 3G and quad-band EDGE. There's also WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot for expansion. Sure, it runs Windows Mobile 5.0, but there's various ways of changing that if you wish. ;)

ome on T-Mobile Vario IV ! Any day now!
07 Jan 2009

Agh.. it feels like we've been waiting for ages now. The T-Mobile Vario IV (aka HTC Touch Pro) has already sneaked into the support area of the T-Mobile website but alas it's still not in the on-line shop. Wait a minute though, because Simon Haine has just had a call from T-Mobile offering him the Vario IV and an upgrade. Joy ! :)

Have you had a call ? Have you spotted one in your local T-Mobile shop ? Let us know. :) Also, if you've spotted anything we should be covering just give me a nudge about it.


ZTE E810 to appear as Vodafone 1230
27 Dec 2008

Meet the ZTE E810. It's a QWERTY messaging device with some fairly basic specs. GPRS / EDGE, 320x240 pixel screen, 1.3 Megapixel screen, microSD card and it's powered by a 1100 mAh battery. Designed for the GSM 850/1800/1900 network it runs Windows Mobile Standard, so there's no touch screen but we're seeing GPS and Bluetooth mentioned in the manual.

Sure, it's ready for a launch on Movistar but we've also seen it on the Vodafone site as the Vodafone V1230. Check out the image below to see it, or try the getting started guide.