Continuing our ongoing series of quirky Chinese phones, ZTE’s i766 was one of the most western handsets we came across at Mobile World Congress, both in terms of build quality and features.
Perhaps most impressive was its support for TV on its high quality 2.4 inch QVGA touchscreen. The metal cased device also supports GPRS, WAP, web and email. Connectivity was Bluetooth and it had ports for USB and T-flash. Overall dimensions were relatively small - if not quite up to Japanese standards - at 106 x 51 x 16.5mm and 120g.
In fact the only real weaknesses we could see were the 1.3MP camera and the plasticky feel of the back of the phone. Well those and the unconventional keypad layout which instead of the traditional call/soft keys and joypad being above the main number keys had them squashed them all together - presumably a configuration designed for nimble Chinese fingers.
More images after the break
Continue reading ‘A high quality Chinese mobile - the ZTE i766′
There’s been a trend for the manufacturers of high-end phones to prove the power of their tech by connecting them to LCD and plasma screens via TV-out. It’s hard to know who exactly would want to do this, although there is an argument that mobile devices could be used this way in developing countries as a sort of PC replacement.
Still we had to take our metaphorical hat off to Nvidia which ran a high defintion H.264 720p stream of Monsters Inc onto a 60 inch plasma screen direct from its APX 2500 development hardware.
Of course, this is a bit of a trick in the sense that the APX 2500 isn’t a phone, although its innards could be powering phones by the end of 2008 if Nvidia gets its way.
It being marketed as an ultra high-end platform - “the heart and brains of the competition to the next iPhone” was the way Nvidia explained it to us.
More words and pics after the break.
Continue reading ‘The most powerful device at MWC - Nvidia APX 2500′
Yesterday we looked at Techfaith’s Bono phone. Today’s model from the Chinese business model design company is the Cynthia 850.
As with the Bono, it’s a Qualcomm device running Windows Mobile. It’s less sophisticated in terms of network capability however being only triple band GSM.
In my opinion though, despite looking similar, it’s a more stylish and streamlined device than the Bono with a 2.8 inch touchscreen. Significantly it’s also one of the growing number of dual SIM Chinese devices - one for work, more for personal use - and has a 2MP camera. Memory is 256MB plus a MicroSD card slot.
Standby time is 150 hours and talk time is 4 hours.
There are some records you have to think aren’t really worth the winning. It’s something UK/Dubai niche mobile designer Neo seems to have experienced with its tiny Neo 808i phone. It claims the 41 x 72 x 14mm, 90g device is the smallest fully-featured phone in the world.
It’s certainly tiny but with GPRS, a MicroSD slot, FM radio, video and audio recorder, 1.2MP camera, Bluetooth, USB as well as web browsing and applications such as calculator, image editor, currency and weight/length converter, and an eBook reader - all viewable on the 26 by 21mm screen - there may just be too much packed into a too small volume for any of it to really work well.
In fact just making the 808i was a trial with special machines required to make the tooling to make the aluminium cased phone.
The 808i comes in his’ red/black and her’s pink/grey colour schemes and was released in Dubai in late 2007.
One of the most interesting features of the Mobile World Congress was the opportunity to get some hands-on time with the Chinese manufacturers whose phones we in the west wouldn’t otherwise get to see. One of the most fascinating was TechFaith, a large handset design company, started by ex-employees of Motorola China.
It’s made more than 100 handsets for most of the top Chinese operators as well as some in other Asian countries and focuses heavily on R&D. At MWC, its stand seemed to feature mainly professionally-oriented designs using Qualcomm-based CDMA technology and running the Windows Mobile OS.
The first of its phones we looked at was a fully-featured beast codenamed ‘Bono’ - nothing to do with the U2 frontman we’re sure.
It was quite a chunky 3G phone with a 3 inch touchscreen, a slide out QWERTY keyboard, GPS and two cameras - a back-mounted 2MP and a front-mounted 300KP for video calls. Other features included wi-fi, Bluetooth 2.0, a mini USB port and a microSD slot plus a hotline to various heads of state around the world (nah, we made the last bit up).
More words and pics after the break
Continue reading ‘Techfaith’s all-singing all-dancing Bono phone’
We found this interesting phone/communicator from LG hiding out on the Nokia booth. The reason is it’s one of LG’s Series 60/Symbian phones.
It looks quite traditional - even slightly chunky from the outside. There’s a 2MP camera on the back and just check out the fake leather effect (with slightly rubberised finish). Very retro. Not very business.
But rotate and flip it open and you have yourself something very different thanks to a neat little QWERTY keyboard and stereo speakers.
We were quite impressed actually. Despite the small form factor, it felt very solid and if the build quality wasn’t up there with LG’s more stylish metal-cased models, it certainly remained better than industry standard. So not too bad for a HSDPA phone with a QVGA res screen.
More images after the break. Continue reading ‘LG gets S60 QWERTY with KT 610′
Phonemakers have been making phones with navigation features for a while, so we suppose it makes sense for navigation companies to start adding phone features to satnavs. Thus Garmin was sort of showing off its nüvifone at the Mobile World Congress. We say ’sort of’ because it didn’t have any working models available for handling - the pictured devices were kept under perspex.
Still, you get the picture.
The nüvifone (please note the umlaut) is designed to sit neatly in your car and tell you where to go while linking into mobile data services such as Google to help you find the sort of restaurant or hotel you’re interested in. And then the babysitter can ring you while you’re on your starters to let you know Jack’s been sick and she can’t find Kylie.
Yeah, we’re just being mean.
It looks a fairly smooth device. Offering quad band/3.5G (GSM/GPRS/HSDPA), the phone also comes with wi-fi features, a 3.5 inch touchscreen, Bluetooth 2.0, a 3MP camera and provides for web browsing, email, IM and SMS, and links into Garmin’s Online platform too.
More images after the break.
Continue reading ‘Finding our way with Garmin’s nuvifone’
It’s always nice to get your hands on a phone not even Japanese consumers have, and on the NTT DoCoMo stand, we came across the lovely Panasonic P705i Mu.
The HSDPA phone comes in an extremely stylish metal-cased slim-line clamshell which folds down to a neat 109 by 50 by 9.8mm and weighs around 105g.
There’s a 2MP camera, while standby is rated at 460 hours and talk time 130 minutes. Videocalls capacity is 90 minutes.
But perhaps more importantly than the tech specs, it just looked and feel amazingly better than anything produced in the west.
More pics after the break.
Continue reading ‘The extremely stylish Panasonic P705i Mu’
The convergence of mobile devices, data and navigation was one of the ongoing themes at the 2008 Mobile World Congress and Windows-based company HTC had its first public showing of its P3470 PDA phone.
A typical HTC product in terms of the excellent build quality and the homepage HTC Home Screen utility, the P3470 links in with TomTom Navigator map software. Its smooth scroll wheel is used together with the touchscreen to provide a solid user interface.
In terms of tech specs, the device runs Windows Mobile Professional 6 on a TI OMAP 850 processor running at 201.5MHz, and has 256MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM. There’s also a 2MP camera (with manual macro selection), Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot.
More photos after the break. Continue reading ‘HTC’s smooth TomTom touch-PDA, the P3470′
One of the strangest things we came across at the Mobile World Congress was the Toshiba G450. Marketed under the title ‘So Much, Yet So Small’, as well as acting as a phone, this tiny device is designed to work as a 3G/HSDPA modem for workers on the go.
The thinking seems to be that it’s so small you can use it as some sort of backup emergency mobile (it also does MP3 playback and comes with 160MB of memory), while you can plug it into your laptop via mini USB to get online with download speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps. It will simultaneously work as a phone in such a configuration but apparently you have to dial out using a PC software utility, selecting from your contacts list or typing in the number via the laptop’s keyboard/mouse.
More images after the break
Continue reading ‘Toshiba’s mini phone-come-3G modem, the G450′
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