Yesterday Sony Ericsson and Motorola announced their new handsets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Now LG’s got in on the act with its 2008 line-up.
Already award-winning at the CES Innovations Awards, LG’s handsets are bound to get a lot of interest before their releases later this year. LG’s certainly got form in this ever since it caught everyone’s attention with the 15m-selling Chocolate.
So what’s it got lined up? Sadly only two phones that sound at all interesting.
First up is the LG Voyager (right). Already heralded as LG’s own “iPhone killer”, LG claims it’s the first handset with both a touch-screen and full QWERTY keyboard, but it also has access to V CAST Mobile TV (Verizon Wireless’ mobile TV service – well, CES is in the US)and full HTML internet browsing as well as a 2-megapixel camera. For music and video playback there’s also dual stereo speakers.
Then there’s the LG Venus, “the brightest star in the LG handset lineup” according to the manufacturer. This slider, available in black and pink, has dual screens, touch navigation, a music player and 2-megapixel camera. Hmm. We’re not quite sure yet why it’s the ‘brightest star’, but maybe we’ll find out soon enough.
Of the rest (and there’s a LOT), the others are all pretty low-end mass-market handsets pitched at particular markets…
Continue reading ‘LG unveils 2008 lineup - two stand out but the rest…’
Motorola has followed Sony Ericsson’s lead in going handset crazy at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
There are the mid-range W230 (candybar) and W270 (slider), but the headlines will surely be grabbed by the new touch-screen E8 and the long-delayed Z10.
The ROKR E8 (right) might only have GPRS/EDGE, but its selling point has got to be the ability to switch between camera, music player (including Windows Media Player 11 compatibility), contacts and phone calls at the touch of your fingertip, using a haptic vibrating touchpad.
The other handset, the slider Z10 (below), is being pitched as a “mobile filmstudio[sic]”. Aside from the dodgy spelling, it does at least have HSDPA connectivity and 3.2-megapixel camera. Oh, and it runs on Symbian, which is a good alternative to Motorola’s infamously Marmite-like OS.
However, the ‘mobile filmstudio’ aspect comes from the phone having the ability to let you instantly upload photos and videos to YouTube, Google, Yahoo and Shozu. So it’s not quite a proper ‘film studio’ but its still an appealing new handset.
Vodafone’s 2007-2008 Symbian roadmap has been leaked and while we already know about the 2007 releases, more interesting is the two new Nokia handsets in Vodafone’s plans.
has show two new Nokia devices – the Liam and the Dora, scheduled for launch in Q2 this year. Both have built-in Wi-Fi, GPS and HSDPA and 3.2-megapixel cameras. But they do have differences…
The Liam is a QWERTY device with a 2.4-inch screen and is smaller and slimmer than the Nokia E61, which it’s going to replace. Meanwhile the slider Dora succeeds the Nokia E65, with a 2.4-inch screen and quad-band connectivity.
The devices sound (and look) pretty interesting but really, the names! Please Vodafone or Nokia, sort them out before you release these handsets – who’d want a handset called a ‘Dora’?
Sony Ericsson’s gone new-handset-crazy at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
First up is the W760 Walkman phone with features coming out of its ears, starting with a 3.2-megapixel camera. Music features include stereo speakers, TrackID and SensMe technology to match your music with your mood, and the Active Speaker MAS-100.
It’s not the most exciting the name but the MAS-100 is one of the most intriguing accessories we’ve seen in a long time. It is a protective case for your phone which also includes handy speakers and a FM radio antenna.
It sounds like a cool device, and we haven’t even mentioned the GPS features. With built-in Wayfinder Navigation (lets you search over 20 million points of interest around the Globe) and Google Maps built-in.
And that’s not all… Continue reading ‘Sony Ericsson crams everything into new W760 Walkman phone’
Another Walkman from Sony Ericsson announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas, this is a slim 10mm-thick clamshell in ‘trendy’ colours of black with orange trimmings.
The W350’s key selling points seems to be the buttons on the outside (Walkman On Top), for Play, Pause and Scroll through tracks. These are designed for easy control of music playback without you having to waste precious seconds opening it.
To make it easy to transfer music, there’s Sony Ericsson’s new Intuitive Media software, letting users drag tracks onto their phone on their computer and transfer them via USB cable.
If the phone isn’t ‘trendy’ enough for you, it’ll also come with a new Bluetooth headset – the HBH-DS205 – with Bluetooth stereo streaming for wireless music listening.
The W350 isn’t as feature-packed as the W760 – for instance Sony hasn’t mentioned whether it’ll have a camera - but it seems Sony’s going for the lower end of the market with the W350, presumably people looking for a cheap, stylish music phone. Although we do admit it is incredibly sexy!
Sony Ericsson’s third new handset at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) show in Las Vegas is, like the W350, a stylish clamshell.
“Designed to reflect your look and attract attention”, according to Sony Ericsson, it seems the Z555 reflects the adage that if you want a really stylish handset, you have to be willing to have a pretty basic handset.
Admittedly it does look great with a reflective diamond finish on the front, two eye-catching colours (Diamond Black or Dusted Rose). The outside display is invisible when not in use but perhaps the neatest style feature is the phone’s display themes changing to suit the season – even offering something special for events like New Year’s Eve.
So why is it a basic handset? Well, it has Gesture Control (You can mute ringtones with a wave of your hand), and MP3 player, but is does only a 1.5-megapixel camera.
To make up for this Sony Ericsson’s also released a series of fashion accessories – four leather bags and three new Bluetooth Headsets, all designed to look good when you’re going handsfree and er, have your ‘trendy’ stylish handset in your bag or pocket?!?!
Okay, it doesn’t look like much but this little device could be a godsend to anyone living outside our city centres.
The little gadget from is a mobile signal booster, promising up to 10x signal boosts. The cellular amplifier plugs into any device that can be plugged into car power supplies or into a laptop via a USB connection, or by using an option mains plug.
Once plugged in the device will recognise your mobile and start boosting your mobile coverage without you having to lift a finger. Genius!
Although it’s being released in the US later this year – priced at around $149 – it should work here in the UK on any network and connecting to your Bluetooth enabled phone.
All we can say is we want one. Now.
Unofficial blog NokNok has posted an interesting new development. Nokia seems to have inadvertently let slip that it’s releasing a 8GB version of its super-cameraphone the N82.
According to NokNok, Nokia’s US version of its Download! portal features a N82 8GB – despite the manufacturer not having said anything.
This doesn’t mean it’s definitely coming out but it’s an exciting piece of news as no-one would turn down such storage on their top-end five-megapixel camera phone. Would they?
Mobile video provider Mobix has announced it will offer three Turner TV mobile services on mobile phones – lad’s mag Nuts TV, the Adult Swim mobile animation and live action service, and Cartoon Network.
Mobile will offer each of the services to operators as self-contained channel. Adult Swim will be included as part of Sky’s Mobile TV pack and an on-portal operator services, while Nuts TV (updated weekly) and Cartoon Network (including Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry and the brilliant Johnny Bravo), will be offered as standalone channels for operators to put on their mobile internet portals.
[Via Mobile Entertainment]
Motorola has fired a broadside at Nokia’s DVB-H mobile TV products with its own Mobile TV DH01 ‘personal media player’.
DVB-H is the EU-backed mobile TV standard and Motorola’s DH01 will be compatible with it. Like Nokia when it launched DVB-H products, Motorola’s first device (to be unveiled at the CES show in Las Vegas) won’t be a mobile phone.
Motorola’s DH01 will be a paperback-sized device with a 4.3-inch screen supporting up to 16 million colours, and running at 25fps. It also has Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard support capable of storing 90 minutes of TV video on a 256MB card. And you don’t have to worry about running out of juice as the DH01 has four hours of playback time.
As a bonus, to get round that annoying lag in images you get with most mobile TV services as the streaming is buffered, Motorola’s solution will offer a five-minute memory buffer.
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