Mobile Phones News Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Phone’

ZTE’s director of mobile device operations has confirmed that the Chinese company is working on a Windows 8 device set to be launched next year, although he declined to divulge any other specific information.

Speaking to the Inquirer, he said that Windows 8 was “certainly on the horizon, it’s in the pipeline, it is part of the roadmap” and that ZTE will be launching up to 30 smartphones by the end of the year including a number of Windows phone handsets like the ZTE Tania.

Tablet-wise, ZTE already has the 7-inch Light 2 and the 10-inch Light 10, in the pipeline; both devices have noteworthy selling points.

The Light 2 is the first tablet to get the colour Pixel Qi screen which can be viewed in bright light conditions, while the Light 10 has a DVB-T tuner. It is perfectly reasonable to think that the bigger of the two tablets will be able to support Windows 8 on ARM.

A raft of tablets running on Microsoft’s latest operating system are expected to be released at CES in Las Vegas and at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year. Three non x86 silicon partners: Qualcomm, TI & Nvidia have been selected with others likely to be included later next year.

Three announced this morning that all its pay monthly customers would be offered the option of upgrading their contracts to include unlimited all you can eat internet for as little as £3 per month (on top of their existing package).

Now we’ve received confirmation from Three’s PR department that (a) the offer is available on SIM only packages (b) the offer is available on 30 day contracts.

What does that mean? Well for a start, as long as you don’t use your phone as a modem or use the SIM in a broadband dongle, it’s pretty much “carte-blanche” for users; from voice over IP, streaming video and audio content or even mobile P2P, customers will be free to do whatever they want.

The most interesting of them is the 30-day SIM only Internet which already offers 2GB with free voicemail at £5.11 per month. Update it to unlimited data consumption and you pay a mere £8.11 per month, that’s under £100 per year.

It means that you could plug the SIM into an Android phone like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and use it both as a tablet and as a phone. Even better, get that SIM into a Motorola Atrix and you will be able to use it with the Lapdock as a laptop.

Nokia has started shipping the N9 smartphone to global markets, the company announced.

The N9 is going to be the first and last smartphone based on the Meego platform, which Nokia abandoned in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform.

The device, which features a 3.9 inch AMOLED touch screen and has no physical buttons, is the last Meego device Nokia ships before it launches its first Windows Phone u7 smartphone device.

The N9 will weigh 135 grams and A-GPS, an 8-megapixel camera capable of shooting video at 720p as well as a browser that supports HTML. The device will also come with support for Wi-Fi and HSDPA (High-Speed Download Packet Access).

The device’s interface comes with three home views, applications, events and live applications. Users will be able to download Meego applications from the Nokia Store. The N9 also comes with free navigation and voice directions app.

The suggested retail price for the device is €480 for the 16Gb storage and €560 for 64GB of storage, Nokia said. The device is being launch in developing markets like India, China and Russia.  No release date has been set for UK or US markets as of now.

Verizon stands behind Samsung in the Korean company’s legal battle against iPhone maker Apple.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Verizon said in a legal filing that if the courts ban some of Samsung devices, its investment in the next generation will be negatively impacted.

“That investment depends on consumers having access to devices that can make use of that network. The accused Samsung devices are among the few products that can access Verizon Wireless’s next-generation high-speed network,” Verizon said in a filing with the  U.S. District Court in Northern California.

Verizon recently started selling Apple’s iPhone device in the United States, something which allowed the company to compete against AT&T, which was the sole provider of the iPhone. So, it is strange that the Verizon would go against one of its most important mobile phone partners.

Apple has launched a worldwide legal assault on Samsung, claiming the company infringed on some of its design and technology patents in its Android powered devices. The two companies are locked in legal battles in Germany, United States, Australia and South Korea.

The first week of October 2011 is expected to be one of the busiest ever when it comes to product launches, with Apple launching the iPhone 5 and other manufacturers queueing up a slew of Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets, all set to disrupt Apple’s extravaganza. Now Sony Ericsson is set to make the Xperia Pro available from the 6th of October according to a listing on Clove Technology’s website.

The device was launched back in February 2011 at MWC in Barcelona but has not gone on sale until now. The Japanese company did not explain why the handset has been delayed by nearly eight months and at least four months after the Xperia Play, arc and Neo – which were launched at the same time – went for sale.

The Xperia Pro comes with a 3.7-inch FWVGA capacitive touchscreen display with Mobile Bravia Engine, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz SoC, 320MB RAM, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and an eight-megapixel camera with LED flash which uses Sony’s Exmor R camera lens.

It also has a four-row slide out QWERTY keyboard, an HDMI out, a front-facing camera and a micro USB port. We’re wondering whether the delay was not caused by the fact that the smartphone only comes with 320MB RAM but has to support Android Gingerbread AND Sony Ericsson’s own UI.

Samsung is planning to launch a flexible smartphone in 2012, which will come with a bendable AMOLED touch screen.

According to an article on The Telegraph, the Samsung Galaxy Skin will feature a large and bright AMOLED skin which will be able to fold like a wristwatch.

The screen, made up of a plastic polyimide substrate instead of glass, consumes low amounts of energy and is extremely strong.

The phone, developed by  Professor Haeseong Jee and Jye Yeon You, has been built using graphene, which is said to be the strongest material on Earth; almost 200 times stronger than steel.

The Galaxy Skin will also feature a 800×480 flexible AMOLED screen, 1 GB of RAM, a 1.2 Ghz processor and a 8MP camera. Users of the device can use it as a wrist watch, mouse or clock. This versatility should make the new product a popular one with a wide variety of people.

Interestingly, Samsung plans to power the phone with Android Jelly Bean, which will be launched after the long awaited Android Ice Cream Sandwich. The device may also be powered by a new version of Android called Android Flexy.

Motorola DROID RAZR is the name of the latest mobile phone announced by the company that is an Android powered device with decent list of specifications. The phone comes in bar form factor and sports 4.3 inches of Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen supporting 540 X 960 pixels resolution. The display also features light sensor, scratch resistant glass, multi touch input method and proximity sensor.

Motorola DROID RAZR is a water proof phone that enables the user to carry it conveniently no matter wherever they may go. For connectivity the phone features multiple options including Bluetooth, WiFi, HTML and Flash browser, microUSB 2.0 and HDMI.

There is 8 MP camera present in Motorola DROID RAZR that features image stabiliser, LED Flash and AF so as to capture impressive quality images. Other multimedia options include 1080p HD video recording, music player, video player and games.

Additional specifications of the phone include microSD and microSDHC card slot, GPS, 1200 MHz of processor, 1024 MB RAM and others.

Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE is the name of the latest mobile phone announced by the company that comes packed with wide array of impressive specifications. Running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, the phone is powered by Dual Core 1.5 GHz of processor so as to offer good performance.

There is wide 4.65 inches of Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen in Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE that supports 16M colours along with 720 X 1280 pixels resolution. The display of the phone is made up of Gorilla Glass and features touch sensitive controls, TouchWiz UI 4.0, accelerometer sensor, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor and multi touch input method.

Variety of connectivity options are present in the phone for the convenience of the users and these include GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, HTML Browser and microUSB 2.0.

List of additional specifications that comes packed with Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE  include 8 MP camera with AF and LED Flash, 2 MP secondary camera, 1080p video recording, FM Radio with RDS , TV Out, games, expandable memory up to 32GB, GPS with AGPS, multi format music player and video player, 1850 mAh battery and others.

Samsung has launched a new version of the Galaxy S II called the Galaxy S II HD LTE which packs a massive 4.65-inch HD ready Super AMOLED HD display, matching Apple’s Retina Display pixel density.

The phone is a smaller and more importantly, more pocket-sized version of the Galaxy Note, albeit without the Stylus. It sports LTE and a dual core 1.5GHz SoC (unlikely to be a new version of Exynos, more like a new Qualcomm Snapdragon model).

The Galaxy S II HD also features 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, a microSD card slot, GSM/HSPA+, an eight megapixel camera with full HD recording and a two megapixel front-facing camera, a 1850mAh battery and is only 9.5mm thick.

A second version of the phone called the Galaxy S II LTE features a smaller 4.5-inch WVGA screen instead of the HD ready one and only adds to the confusion surrounding Samsung’s Galaxy line up.

The S II HD LTE will go on sale at SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ in South Korea but there are no plans to bring them to US or Europe at the moment.

The Galaxy Note will be launched in the UK before the end of the year according to the latest rumours, with one online retailer listing the device for as much as £600. We suspect that the S II HD will go for a tad less than that.

A patent filed by software giant Microsoft indicates that the company is thinking about launching a Windows Phone 7 powered gaming phone.

According to Kotaku, the patent, which was filed in 2010 but was made public last week, shows that the company has thought-up a slide out control pad for the smartphone.

The slide out component will be able to double up as a keyboard for phone functions and as a  control pad for gaming.

“A mobile communication device comprises a first device with a first display and multiple second devices. The second devices are releasably attachable to the first device and are interchangeable with each other. The mobile device can operate as a mobile cell phone with one or more second devices operable as a mobile phone hand set,” the Microsoft patent reads.

Microsoft is already planning to integrate Xbox Live with its Windows Phone 7 platform. Therefore, the company might be planning to launch Xbox branded gaming phone that makes the Xbox Live integration its USP.

Microsoft will be in direct competition, if it indeed launches such a phone, with the Sony’s PlayStation branded Xperia Play device.

Traditional gaming is being threatened by the rise of social and mobile gaming, so Microsoft and Sony are coming up with their own strategies to either counter the rising trend or jump in the bandwagon.