Published by Nick Renshaw on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Like lover’s in the night, renowned online smartphone retailer Expansys and mobile VoIP experts Truphone have got together to deliver a co-branded VoIP service. It will be compatible with Wi-Fi enabled Nseries and Eseries Symbian smartphones and Expansy’s will offer the service to online customers when they buy the appropriate device.
Truphone already hawks its own downloadable VoIP software client for the aforementioned Nokia smarties while its online shop has been powered by Expansy’s for sometime now, so both companies were already on each other’s radar. Expansy’s wanted to get involved with the VoIP venture after research showed that 60% of mobile phone calls were made from the home and office, revealing a potential customer audience to target with cheaper internet calls.
(via Mobile Today)
Published by Nick Renshaw on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Just lately, Samsung can’t seem to keep its upcoming phones under wraps. As hard as it tries news and pictures of its new handsets keep leaking on the web. Pocket Picks has picked up on a couple of revealing stories including info on the G600 five-megapixel camera phone with optical zoom follow-up, the G800 and the i550 smartie with built-in GPS. Now the latest Samsung device to shuffle into our sights is the i570 smartphone.
This Symbian powered handset appears quite slim and compact but still wide like the i600, measuring 92×60x16mm. Samsung has kept the girth down by concealing a full sliding QWERTY keyboard and the i570 arrives with all the latest connectivity options including Wi-Fi and HSDPA (presumably the 3.6Mbps flavour). Storage is handled by the 160MB of built in memory, backed up by a microSD card slot. Of course at this stage, details on the rest of the spec, news of availability and price is still a bit foggy.
(Mobil Mania via Slashphone)
Published by Nick Renshaw on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
The Samsung i600 has all the right credentials to make it in this cutthroat smartphone world: a great to thumb full QWERTY keypad, built-in Wi-Fi for broadband-esque download speeds when web browsing and fast HSDPA connectivity speeds to fall back on should you move out of WLAN range. However it’s only powered by a yesteryear Windows Mobile 5.0 OS. Disappointing for i600 owners when a new look, streamlined and bug free Windows Mobile 6 OS is now directing matters on other new shiny smartphones.
Still, i600 users shouldn’t despair too much because Samsung is giving a free Windows Mobile 6 OS upgrade to all of you. At the moment only the Dutch and Russian customers are up for the upgrade but the Union Jack flag, along with what looks like the rest of Europe, is just waiting to be activated so keep your eye on this web page to see when you can download your spanking new OS. There’s plenty of time mind, because the offer doesn’t end until 31st October 2008.
(via CoolSmartPhone)
The next five years will see unprecedented changes in the global handset market, driven by Apple’s iPhone. Or at least that’s what a market analyst has predicted.
In a new report, analyst David Chamberlain at market research firm In-Stat, looked at current handset technologies plus a US survey on handsets and consumers’ wish-lists for mobile handsets.
Chamberlain claimed that four key factors will shape both our expectations and the future designs of mobile technology, data services and connectivity over the next five years:
- New features in Apple’s iPhone like touch screens, fingerprint recognition and proximity sensors will raise expectations for technologies in our mobiles.
- Increasing take-up of WiFi by both consumers and business users will force manufacturers to make more dual-mode cellular/WiFi handsets.
- Operators’ roll-outs of mobile TV networks like DVB-H will drive development of relevant handset technologies like improved displays, processing power, and related handset applications.
- WiMAX could lead to a ‘new generation’ of devices combining advanced functions for both cellular and Internet use.
It sounds exciting, but whatever happened to using mobiles to make phone calls or send texts?
It’s time again to stop worrying about which handset to buy next and which operators allow mobile VoIP and pay a visit to our sister site, Pocket Gamer, to indulge in some good old-fashioned play-time with this week’s mobile games round-up.
Powering onto mobiles with its metal caterpillar tracks, Tank Raid provided some 3D on rails shooting gallery thrills giving the week a strong start with 7 out of 10.
The Simpsons: Minutes to Meltdown didn’t fare so well. The combination of a near non-existent lifespan and gameplay that is both buggy and far too easy amounted to little more than a squandered license and as such, Minutes to Meltdown was awarded 4 out of 10.
Continue reading ‘Surfing penguins, android governors and ball shaped ghost killers in this week’s mobile games round-up’
Published by Caspar Field on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Samsung’s recently announced photographer-friendly G600 handset, which comes with a five-megapixel camera sensor tucked inside its slide design, has popped-up on the O2 ‘coming soon’ pages. The site is stating a due date of September, which is slightly later (but clearly more realistic) than Samsung’s previous claims of an August launch. No word on pricing yet, but we’re expecting it to be in the ‘free on £50-a-month contracts’ bracket.
If you’re interested in learning a little more about G600, Samsung has posted a promo video for the phone on YouTube. Hit the jump to view it, and to see a picture of a reasonably attractive young lady holding the handset in a slightly 1970s-esque piece of marketing.
Continue reading ‘Samsung’s 5MP G600 coming soon from O2′
Published by Caspar Field on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Popular online file storage site Box.net has created an iPhone-friendly access page for its services. The site’s free service gets you 1GB of online storage with up to 10GB a month of access bandwidth, or $7.95 (about £4) a month buys 5GB of storage with unlimited access.
Box.net allows you to send people a single link to download large files rather than having to send enormous emails. For mobile users this could be quite useful, especially if you’re on a limited data plan. Plus it effectively means you always have access to important files while you’re on the move.
The site has offered a mobile-friendly service over at m.box.net for a while, but has now also introduced its iPhone-specific access point at i.box.net. Both work over a simple web interface.
Published by Caspar Field on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
That’s according to an AOL survey of over 4,000 American BlackBerry users, as reported by the Guardian. Apparently people leave it on, ‘so they can hear incoming mail‘. Oh for God’s sake, people, that’s just ludicrous. How important can those emails be? Get over yourselves… And get some sleep!
And as for the 83% who admit checking email while on holiday — folks, the thing about holidays is that clue is in the name.
(…rant, rant, rant, grumble, what’s the world coming to, etc.)
Published by Caspar Field on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Above is the NEC N704iμ, successor to the (you guessed it) N703iμ, claimed by its maker to the world’s slimmest W-CDMA handset at just 11.4mm thick/ thin. That’s pretty impressive for any handset, never mind a flipper. (W-CDMA forms the basis of the UMTS high-speed 3G standard that’s used by some European and Japanese operators.)
Shipping now in Japan via NTT DoCoMo, the 90-gram N704iμ’s other claim to fame is that its battery boasts an incredible standby time of almost a month (690 hours). There’s no word from NEC on screen resolution but we’re guessing it’ll be QVGA (240 x 320 pixel). Other specs include a 1.3MP camera on the back plus a smaller one on the inside for video calling. Pretty sweet — but unlikely to see European shores.
Published by Caspar Field on July 31, 2007
in Uncategorized.
Ah, it’s amazing what a bit of ferreting around inside your phone’s firmware can uncover. Last weekend the guys over at iPhoneology discovered what seem to be pointers towards some either as-yet-unreleased, or perhaps considered but never to be released, additional iPhone widgets from Apple. Either way, we should be clear that the above images are NOT from the iPhone, but from Mac OS X dashboard widgets with similar functionality to those found by iPhoneology.
The four strings found related to a unit converter, translation tool, world clock, a phonebook (which seems redundant unless it was to link to an internet-based phone number resource), and a radio app. There’s obviously no proof that any of these will ever come to iPhone, but certainly they’d all be interesting and potentially cool additions — especially an internet radio app. Hit the jump for a screengrab of the full list.
Continue reading ‘Upcoming iPhone widgets found?’
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