Fancy a new Samsung double slider with some ultra hi-tech Bang & Olufsen audio muscle? Course you do, so it’s a good thing that the Korean manufacturer is obliging with the F400, a handset that does both of the above.
The music focussed device is packing ICEpower technology by Bang & Olufsen with Smart Bass and Smart Limiter to ensure no audio signal exceeds the amplitude of the threshold. The music controls are confined to a rather spiffy looking clicker wheel on the front while sliding the handset up will reveal a stylish brushed metal keypad and down, a pair of duel stereo speakers for annoying fellow commuters with when you are on the bus.
The F400 also has Shazam, a clever little software trick that can find out the name and artist of an unknown tune when you point your phone at the source of the music. There’s a 3-megapixel camera, AF/FM Radio and Bluetooth v 2.0 chucked in too as well as a 1GB SD memory card in the box and a microSD slot that supports up to 8GB.
Launching in France in May, the F400 is set to land elsewhere in Europe (hopefully the UK) shortly after.
You might think that Sony Ericsson, Samsung or maybe even an upstart like LG or Apple would be considered more direct competitors to the mobile behemoth that is Nokia, but the ever contrary Finnish company sees things differently, declaring Google as it’s main dueler.
It seems however that this is not a presumptive comment about the potential success of Android, but rather some mild chest beating about some of the inroads the company has been making on some of Google’s more established territory.
Specifically, mobile advertising is where Nokia believes it could step up to the plate as it has shipped over 35 million GPS-enabled mobile phones this year all capable of supporting location-based mobile advertising. Google is somewhat interested in this slice of the market as it already commands the lion’s share of online advertising and location-based mobile advertising is a particularly fertile economic pasture at the moment. It’s no surprise that Nokia is making an aggressive play in that area. Continue reading ‘Nokia going after Google…’
If you are a T-Mobile customer just itching to consign your current handset to the sock drawer in favour of something a little more new and shiny, then be prepared for a letdown.
According to Unwired View, an insider has confirmed (not our idea of confirmation but hey it’s late in the day so let’s roll with it) that the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic and the underwhelming Motorola Z6w are all going to be late. The Nokia handsets have been given new release dates a couple of weeks later than expected whereas the Motorola Z6w is going to be really late, as in it’s never going to launch with T-Mobile.
Apparently the device has been canceled outright due to ‘early testing issues’ which sounds a little heavy handed to us and could just be a nice way of saying the phone was rubbish and not likely to sell well. While Nokia’s bosses are probably still sleeping soundly at night, this is the last thing that the faltering Motorola needs just now. Still, it’s probably best to think of this as a rumour until T-Mobile comes clean with the details.
It seems that RIM really has something of a macho complex just now. Just yesterday we heard about the Blackberry Bold and today news of the touchscreen only Blackberry Thunder has surfaced. Expect to hear about the Blackberry Brave and the Blackberry Red Red Meat in due course.
In any case, The Boy Genious Report is claiming the scoop on the device with a bunch of details and is reporting that it will be a full touchscreen effort launching in late summer this year. Interestingly, the Thunder will launch as a worldwide lifetime exclusive on Verizon and Vodafone as opposed to being shipped out to any carrier who wants it.
As for the form factor, besides the touchscreen the Thunder is said to have only 4 physical keys; the send / end phone keys, the BlackBerry menu key, and the back key. The Thunder is also mooted to include GSM HSPA for traveling internationally as well as potentially some 4G guts (probably LTE), though whether the network support for that will be ready in time for its release is another matter.
And that’s about it for now, obviously this is all subject to change until we get our hands on a press release but for any crackberry addicts who have been feeling jealous of the iPhone’s elegant interface, this could be the handset highlight of the year. More on this as soon as we have it.
Ok, we will admit that we have been trying to avoid reporting on this story as it seems to be lacking in real weight, but it’s about the 3G iPhone and we are helpless to resist so bear with us, we promise to be brief.
AppleInsider has been reporting about a web page leak on AT&T’s website concerning a mysterious option for an ‘iPhone Black’ in the drop down menu for ‘Model’. Given all the recent tongue wagging about the 3G iPhone having a glossy, potentially black finish, the appearance of this option on AT&T’s site has inflamed an already very excitable crowd of rumour traffickers.
Since the whole thing has blown up on the interwebs, an AT&T spokesperson got in touch with Gizmodo, who also picked up the story, commenting that the ‘iPhone Black’ dropdown reference on the AT&T Wireless website is just a temporary placeholder in leu of a “scheduled catalog update,” to distinguish existing iPhone models.
Though the mysterious ‘iPhone Black’ product description may not contain any robust clue about the physical characteristics of the new device, it is conceivable that this catalogue update could include the 3G iPhone (at least that’s what we are hoping). Not long now people…
The mobile phone has officially celebrated it’s 100th birthday. What’s that you say? Mobile phones have only been around for about 30 years or so? Well yes, that’s what you might think and popular wisdom would place those hulking breeze block like behemoths favoured by slick Wall Street crawlers of the 80s as the first examples of mobile phones.
According to the Telegraph however, the first mobile telephone was in fact invented by Nathan Stubblefield in 1908 and came complete with a bulky metal transmitter that makes a mobile phone from the 80s look like a starved iPhone. The telephone was comprised of some wire suspended between metal rods with the transmitter placed on a train carriage or boat. When the vehicle was close by, a signal was sent wirelessly to a telephone onboard using magnetic fields which could be heard near the other end of the wire through another phone. Clever stuff in it’s day, even if it seems caveman-like next to today’s tech.
Ok so this is a bit of a cheat in that it wasn’t really a mobile phone as you and I know it but hey, you know us, any excuse for a party.
We haven’t heard of Momail before, but now that it has added support for Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and just about every other major ISP mail service, it has officially made a blip on our radar.
Basically Momail is a catch all mobile service for your existing email accounts, filtering them all into one ‘Superinbox’ on your mobile while filtering out any spam and customizing them to your phone’s screen. It doesn’t sound like much but essentially it means that data costs are reduced drastically, making media messages less of a drain on your data allowance. Naturally the service also allows you to reply from your phone too, always ensuring that reply mails are sent from the address that received the original mail.
Momail is not a client that you have to download to your phone but rather a service that you set-up online which then configures your existing email client in your handset. Basically that means no bothersome fingers and thumbs optimization headaches. It’s such a simple idea it almost seems strange that we haven’t come across something like this before. Oh, and it’s free too.
Comic book geeks had better sit down as this just might cause you to faint. LG is cashing in on the current wave of Iron Man hype by releasing the LG Shine Iron Man Limited Edition. Still conscious?
Internally the likelihood is that this device will be exactly the same as your typical LG Shine but with some bonus pre-loaded Iron Man content thrown in. But it’s really all about the shiny red and gold shell, that being genuine 18 karat gold and real, erm, shiny red.
Our hopes of this handset jetting over to Europe are not high, but then, with a sizable chunk of gold worked into its body, this is bound to cost more than the average comic book fan can afford (just kidding). Just console yourself by telling yourself that by the time The Incredible Hulk comes out, this handset will feel old anyway.
Hold onto your handsets everyone. Assuming these photos intercepted by AppleInsider are not photoshopped and are not pictures of cheap iPhone knock offs, it looks as though some of the specs that we heard about from iLounge may in fact be legit.
The glossy plastic shell is very evident in these pictures, as is the tapered rear and extra sensor on the front. Also matching iLounge’s claims is the modified microphone and speaker grills at the bottom of the device. It is quite possible that these are images of 3rd party outer shell casings, or as we mentioned, fan mock ups, but there is a slight chance they could be the real deal, especially seeing as China is where the devices are currently being manufactured.
We are not gambling sorts, but if we had to put money on it, we’d say that the final 3G iPhone hardware will not look terribly different from this. Roll on June 9th.
Not that we know from lots of experience or anything *gulp*, but among the avenues for looking at naughty pictures of women wearing, well, nothing, mobile phones, despite often being used in public, are reasonably discreet. Or at least they are more discreet than casually leafing through a copy of Hustler on the bus while the sweet old lady next to you looks on in disgust.
Anyway, if that sort of thing is your bag then you are going to be in a bit of a quandary over the new Playboy branded mobile phone. Do you buy the device and subtly pay homage to your dirty magazine of choice, or would owning such a device remove all doubt from onlookers that you are a dirty filthy pervert?
Either way the choice is yours now that Playboy has made good with a handset called the OT-V770A or Playboy for snappiness sake. According to HTLounge, the Alactel manufactured device is not the sort of thing that will raise your heartbeat, even if it does have some preloaded naughty pictures on it. Besides its admittedly stylish exterior, the device sports a 1.3 megapixel camera, and 10MB of onboard memory, media player and microSD support - form an orderly queue people.
Not exactly mind blowing, though if it does well, it could be a powerful example of the maxim, “sex sells’.
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