03 March 2005

Rumour about 9800

First of all, no, that’s not a picture of the new rumored Nokia PDA — that’s the ‘Thor’ concept from Psion, circa 2000 or so. Psion, who developed the operating system that eventually became what is now known as Symbian, made a bunch of really excellent PDAs throughout the ’90s, most notable for their top-notch keyboards and clamshell form factors (the Psion Revo remains a highlight).
So now The Inquirer is reporting rumors that a new PDA is in the works from Nokia — supposedly called the 9800, or possibly (and in many ways more likely) the 9580 — that will have a large qwerty keyboard, Bluetooth, a 640 x 240 display, a camera, an MP3 player, and — this is the kicker — no phone capabilities.
So everyone has been moving towards device convergence, right? Hard disk MP3 players inside cell phones with QWERTY keyboards that communicate over GSM and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and Batsignal, and basically, that’s good. There’s no reason why a 4GB hard drive in a phone, let’s say, would be bad (besides power issues, but let’s ignore that for the moment). However, there’s still been one major failing in all this, and that’s as mobile input devices, mobile phones suck. T9, modern wonder that it is, is a joke for typing anything meaningful, but nobody wants to integrate a comfortable keyboard — one your can use all 10 fingers at once on — into a regular-sized cell phone, nor should they.

02 March 2005

Samsung D720

Samsung have announced more Series 60 phones than anyone except Nokia... Unfortunately thus far none of them have made it to the market. The Samsung D720 is their third Series 60 phone. It has been shown off at a couple of consumer shows, and 3GSM saw the official launch. Like the D710 it is a slider phone, and the design has been tweaked so that the phone is now slightly smaller and more streamlined. For those who liked the 7650 slider design this phone might be a natural successor.
Samsung (and some analysts) seem confident that they will get the D720 will make it to the market, while others are more sceptical and I'm sure many users will want to see it in the shops first. The previous models represent a considerable investment in Series 60 and Samsung have developed considerable experience in developing Series 60 phones. Indeed they have indicated the continuing development of a range of Series 60 phones. The D720 should be available in Q2 or Q3 2005 which gives them plenty of time to finalise a release phone.

Specifications:
Operating System: Symbian OS 7. Series 60 2nd Edition
Frequency: 900/1800/1900 MHz
Dimension: 99 x 47 x 22 mm
Weight: 110 g
Camera: 1-Megapixel
Display: 262.144 TFT- 176 x 208 Pixel
Ring Tone: 64-polyphonic und MP3-Ringtone

Multimedia-Format: MP3, AAC, AAC+, MPEG4
Bluetooth: YES
USB: YES
Memory: MMC-Slot
Others: E-Mail, MP3-Player, StereoSpeaker, 3D-Sound, Video Streaming

01 March 2005

Phone2Fun Digitizer

Another applciation announced at 3GSM was RealEyes3D Digitizer3.
Phone2Fun Digitizer allows camera phones users to send hand-written messages with text, drawings or pre-printed information, such as newspaper ads, portions of printed pages, etc. as if using their phone as a “connected scanner”.

Taken picture is processed and optimised with enough clarity that the image can be sent via MMS or Email.

25 February 2005

ATP Announces Mass Production of 128/256MB Dual Voltage RS-MMC (DV RS-MMC) Flash Cards.

Providing Much Needed Memory Storage Upgrade Capability on New Mobile Phones Such as the Nokia 6630, 6670, and the upcoming 6680, 6681, 6682 models.
Sunnyvale, CA (February 21, 2005) - ATP Electronics Inc., a leading manufacturer of digital flash media products, today announced that it is in mass production of high capacity dual voltage RS-MMC (DV RS-MMC). The dual voltage (DV) feature allows for compatibility with devices running on the conventional 3.0V as well as with the dual voltage 3.0/1.8V devices. The low voltage feature translates to much lower power consumption, meaning longer battery life for both today and tomorrow's mobile digital devices. Card capacities of 128MB and 256MB are available immediately, with 512MB available in March.
The 128/256MB card quadruples the storage capacity of videos, music, photos games, and ringtones on new mobile phones which either require or could use dual voltage memory cards such as Nokia smartphones 6630, 6670, and recently announced 6680, 6681, 6682 models.

"The demand from our customers to expand the memory storage capacity of mobile devices that require or could use dual voltage RS-MMC memory cards has been tremendous. However, higher capacity (> 64MB) DV RS-MMC availability up to date has been minimal. We are excited to be the premier flash card manufacturer to bring these new products to the market to help fulfill our customers’ need for memory card upgrade, allowing for both the longer battery life of low voltage operation as well as enhanced use of multimedia functions." said Danny Lin, ATP VP of Sales and Marketing.

25 February 2005

How many times have you seen a really good looking device with a ton of features, then you buy it and realize that you can barely use any of those features because the battery life sucks. Eventually, you curtail your use around that battery life, making the experience less than it should be. Enter the iPod. Everyone talks about the great user interface of this wonderful media device. It has five buttons: Play/Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, Menu. In other words, simple! What you don't really hear much about is its battery life. You can get up to 12 freaking hours of music from this thing. How many battery powered devices do you currently have that can last 12+ hours of continuous use? Exactly. So now every time I hear the phrase "iPod Killer," the first thing I look for is the battery life.

Which brings me to the Sendo X2. The Sendo X2 is a Symbian Series 60 smartphone that was just recently announce in France and will sell for around $200 without subsidies when it hits the stores this summer. Besides having all the great smartphone features you can ask for - 1.3 MP camera, bluetooth, expandable memory via miniSD cards, 32MB of memory, etc. - Sendo is selling it as a "music phone," not an "iPod Killer," just a "music phone." It supports the three main music standards - MP3, AAC and AAC+ - and it plays them all in stereo. No big deal, right? Well, while other smartphones by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and PalmOne can play the same music format what they can't do is play music for .... are you ready for this? .... 12 hours. Yes, 12 freaking hours. Granted, the "real" number of hours has not been written in stone, but according to Hugh Brogan, CEO of Sendo, that's what they are shooting for and promising to be in the final specs. Even if they only get 8 hours... lol ... only 8 hours (like that's nothing), it would be magnificent. Can you imagine? And in case you are wondering how Sendo managed to do what no other phone manufacturer 20 times its size has not been able to do, I got one word for you.... software. Yes, the way they are able to pull this off is via software, the Sendo X2 has no battery-sucking sound card. All the music you'll hear will be played using nothing more than software and with higher quality than the iPod.
And if that's not enough, Sendo allows you to update the software on the phones via an easy to install do-it-yourself download. No need to take the phone back to where you bought it from or to a customer service center, you just download the update yourself. Take that Nokia!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Sendo X2 smartphone has the possibility of becoming the "iPod Killer" that was not announced with the purpose of been an "iPod Killer." On top of that, it is a superb smartphone in its own right and for little over $100 you just can't beat it.

24 February 2005,

Panasonic X800
Sneak Preview of a new Symbian S60 phone

Courtesy of Panasonic China, we have a sneak preview of the Panasonic X800. Apparently using the Symbian S60 OS, and miniSD, it features interchangeable covers, and is ultra-slim. It's reported thickness of 17.1mm beats most other mobiles, though obviously not the Motorola RAZR, but is a fantastic accomplishment for a Symbian device. None of Nokia's Symbian phones are close. (The closest is the Nokia 3230, which is supposed to arrive Q1 2005, is a candybar, and is 19mm thick.)

Courtesy of Panasonic China, we have a sneak preview of the Panasonic X800. Apparently using the Symbian S60 OS, and miniSD, it features interchangeable covers, and is ultra-slim. It's reported thickness of 17.1mm beats most other mobiles, though obviously not the Motorola RAZR, but is a fantastic accomplishment for a Symbian device. None of Nokia's Symbian phones are close. (The closest is the Nokia 3230, which is supposed to arrive Q1 2005, is a candybar, and is 19mm thick.)

Other details are scarce, but it is probably safe to conclude that at a minimum it will have the same features as the Panasonic X700. There is no true estimated release date, but the competition that Panasonic China is running has a "finish by 15th Jan" rule, so it'll definitely be after that. And since the content of their competition is "tell us what interchangeable cover you like, how much you would pay for the cover, and how much you'd pay for the phone," we think that it would be rather silly unless the phone was actually mostly complete. (One problem with this is that the competition prizes are a bunch of CD's and leather notebooks rather than the phone.)

Of course the first Panasonic symbian was plagued by interminable delays, but unlike the Samsung Symbian effort, the X700 has now definitely been released.

24 February 2005 (late at night)

How to move and save your messages
directly on your MMC
(N-Gage / SX1 / X700 / etc..)

Now tested and working on Panasonic X700 to
If you have a N-gage, Siemens SX1, or Panasonic X700 u might know that u can’t change your message storing memory, it is a factory disabled function, I think because MMC swapping reasons.
This guide will teach you how to bypass that restriction and move/save your messages directly on MMC instead of your phone memory! This mean all of your messages SMS, MMS, email, and Bluetooth to!!
That’s give u many benefits, for example u will get more free space in phone memory, and maybe most important benefits is that u can finally use direct BT sending for transferring large files (music, movies, games, etc) from PC or share that contest between two phones without necessity to set-up connection manger and use PC suite or any other similar soft like Desktop file manger.

23 February 2005,

Nokia 6682 Smartphone with no PTT

Nokia was feeling left out these last couple of days, so they went ahead and unveiled their 1.3 megapixel tri-band GSM handset at the PMA show today. Of course we are the least bit surprised.
The Nokia 6682 smartphone for North America is identical to the 6681 announced last week for the European, Middle East and African markets, minus the Push to talk functionality, why you ask? That’s a damn good question! Atleast they added some stainless steel trim to make up for it.
The handset uses an LED flash and offers users a vivid 262k colour LCD screen for viewing photographs, playing music or watching up to one hour of your recorded videos. Photos can be printed with Nokia’s XpressPrint solution or on any PictBridge compatible printer via USB. Memory is expandable via the hot-swappable reduced-size MMC card.
What would an all-in-one smartphone be without MP3 and AAC support? The built-in media player will let you create your own custom playlists and purchase and download songs using the Loudeye mobile music solution.

22 February 2005,

Cabir Worm Spreads to US

The well known Cabir worm has now escalated to a global threat reaching 12 countries, by infecting Symbian handsets via their Bluetooth connections, the worm continues to spread and drain batteries to unprotected users. Reports came in that the Caribe.sis has now been received by Americans and could be spread to other Countries near by.

Bluetooth only has a range of about 20 meters, but in the last 7 months it has managed to travel and infect 1.5 billion handsets from the Philippines to Singapore, and now finally appearing in the US.

Cabir is common among travelers and can be easily prevented by setting your phone into non-discoverable (hidden) Bluetooth mode, this will protect your phone from receiving the Cabir worm from others. If you receive an email with an attachment called “Caribe.sis”, do not run it. If it is too late, contact your communications provider.

18 February 2005,

17 February 2005,

Two closely related handsets running the Symbian Series 60 operating system, the Nokia 6680, 6681 and 6682 feature Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, removable memory on hot swappable Reduced Size MMC (RSMMC) cards, stereo audio playback and a large 176x208 pixel display.
The primary different between the 6680 (pictured left) and 6681 (pictured right) in technology terms is that the 6680 is a 3G device with a secondary camera on the front for video calls, and the 6681 is aimed at markets using the EDGE data standard. Significantly, the Nokia 6680 is the first Nokia phone to offer built-in video calling capabilities, which should help with its acceptance by 3G operators. The Nokia 6682 is a variant of the 6681 designed for US markets.
The 6681/6682 is a clever move by Nokia as it means that users on EDGE networks have access to pretty much the same technology as their 3G counterparts, and this is a useful handset for those carriers that didn't go to the massive expense of acquiring a 3G licence. EDGE data support gives download speeds of up to 236.8 kbps, which isn't that much slower that the 3G speeds of 384 kbps on the 6680. Really, apart from the video calling there is very little functional difference between EDGE and 3G a...

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-=[ The year of the Smartphones - full story]=-