The mobile aera

Sagem my150x

2007-10-01T06:36:00.001-07:00

The Sagem my150x is a very low cost phone from this French manufacturer which manages to look very stylish and comes with an interesting display technology too.

It's a very light phone, the Sagem my150x weighs just 65 grams. At just 10mm thick, the my150x is very slim too - in fact, it's one of the slimmest phones on the market. Overall dimensions are 107 x 47 x 10mm, which means that the my150x isn't too small to use. The handset is attractively finished with chrome highlights to add to the slightly unconventional monoblock layout.

Nokia E51

2007-10-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

The Nokia E51 is Nokia's new entry-level phone in the E-Series business range, replacing the Nokia E50 which unfortunately failed to make much of an impression on customers.
This is a Symbian S60 3rd Edition smartphone, and the Nokia E51 is a quad-band GSM 850/900/1900/1900 MHz phone with dual band UMTS 850/2100 MHz which will make it useful for business travellers. Unlike the E50, the Nokia E51 now adds UMTS (3G) and HSDPA (3.5G) plus WiFi. This makes the E51 useful as an accessory for a laptop, and the inclusion of WiFi also opens up the possibility of using the handset for voice over IP (VOIP), especially with a corporate VOIP gateway - Nokia provide solutions that will work with Cisco and Alcatel systems. At Mobile Gazette, we think that corporate VOIP using devices of this type is likely to be a major growth area during 2008.

Nokia 7500 Prism

2007-10-01T06:30:00.001-07:00

The good: The Nokia 7500 Prism has a gorgeous display and a broad range of features, including Bluetooth. The music player is quite nice, and music quality is respectable.
The bad: The Nokia 7500 Prism had clunky navigation controls and keypad buttons. Also, call quality was uneven with low volume.

Nokia 6301

2007-09-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

With a sleek stainless steel design, the Nokia 6301 launched today offering consumers seamless voice and data mobility across GSM cellular and WLAN networks via Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology. With UMA technology, consumers can use GSM or broadband Internet-connected WLAN networks for mobile services, ensuring excellent coverage and sound quality, even in areas where mobile phone reception has previously been poor.

Orange will be one of the first operators to offer the Nokia 6301, as part of its Unik/Unique portfolio. The Nokia 6301 is an evolution of the modern monoblock design.

CEC F88 Wristwatch Phone

2007-09-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

A Chinese corporation called CEC created this watch/phone/internet browser/camera. And all for the very, very low price of $1,111. It was created for a famous Chinese ping pong player… I suppose to keep his hands free? It has 26k colors CSTN display, a built in speakerphone and microphone, voice dialing, and even pre installed world cup games to play on your wristwatch phone. It weighs only 100grams with dimensions: 38.3 x 76.7 x 17cm. The keyboard is on the wristwatch and the speaker can be connected to your finger. Best of all, it has the capacity for videoconferencing with a 180 degree rotating 3 megapixel camera… yes Go Go Gadget fans… just like the Inspector himself used to use to videoconference Penny and the loveable Brain the Dog.

Cell Phones Won't Kill Your Brain

2007-09-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Cell phone use does not appear to be hazardous to human health, according to U.K. study published today, though research gaps mean that the possibility of adverse health effects arising from mobile phone use cannot be entirely dismissed. The Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme's 2007 Report, a six year research program found no correlation between short term mobile phone use and brain cancer.

Palm Announces Treo 500v for Vodafone

2007-09-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Treo 500v is the first full revision to the Treo hardware from Palm in years. It is a new Windows Mobile 6 standard smartphone that abandons touchscreen interactivity, but adds Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR with the HFP, HSP, A2DP, and OPP profiles, a 2 Megapixel camera and 150 MB of usable memory that can be expanded with a microSD card. As with previous generations of Treos, it has a full QWERTY keyboard and large screen. It will support Microsoft's Direct Push email as well as POP3 email accounts. It is a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone, supporting the 900/1800/1900 bands as well as UMTS 2100 3G. Palm will likely release a variant of the 500v that supports US networks at a later date. It is available in white and gray.

Industry Hoping to Set Flash Memory Standard

2007-09-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

A number of companies, including Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, have teamed together in an effort to create a standard for removable flash memory. They are petitioning the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association to adopt a specification called Universal Flash Storage. The specification aims to forge a universal memory solution for consumer electronics, such as mobile phones, that provides faster access to large media files, lower power consumption, and alleviates the need for memory card adaptors.

Nokia announces stand-alone GPS system and mobile accessory upgrades

2007-09-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Nokia branched out a bit from their mobile phone business with their Internet Tablets and today just announced another type of product that I suppose could be considered a mobile phone accessory. The GPS market is hot and Nokia will soon have their own portable GPS navigation solution called the Nokia 500 Auto Navigation. This device will compete with the Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom devices that are so popular today. Like some of the other solutions it will also serve as a hands-free Bluetooth speakerphone for in car use.

The Nokia 500 will be preloaded with Nokia Maps preinstalled with regional maps, depending on where you purchase the device, and will provide spoken and text directions. It will have a traffic channel that I imagine gets the data through your mobile phone connection, but the press release isn’t clear about that functionality. Nokia is also promoting the entertainment value of the device with its FM transmitter, music playing, photo viewing, and video playing functionality. It is expected in the 4th quarter for EUR 300. Nokia also announced several new mobile accessories with this press release. These products are mostly enhancements to existing product lines and include the LD-4W Bluetooth GPS receiver module, the BH-903 Bluetooth stereo headset, the BH-902 Bluetooth headset, MD-7W Bluetooth stereo speakers and DC-1 Nokia Power Pack. The DC-1 Power Pack is a new product and is a portable power station that has the equivalent of three 950 mAh batteries to recharge your mobile devices and is compatible with the now standard 2mm charging interface. You can charge two device as the same time with the two available ports. These new products should also be available in the 4th quarter.

Nokia, Motorola and Samsung Take 61% of China's Mobile Phone Market

2007-09-14T14:42:00.001-07:00

CCID Consulting has released a report discussing how brand concentration of mobile phones in China is improving, with success determined by the company's differentiation strategy. As monitoring data from CCID Consulting reveals, in the first half of 2007, domestic Chinese mobile phones featured a sales volume of 71.478 million sets and a sales revenue of 84.58 billion Yuan, with a respective growth of 25.5% and 5.5% compared with the same period last year. The market scale expanded continuously and the average price of mobile phones dropped steadily.

Foreign brands have driven up the sales efforts of low-end products and bundled mobile phones. Foreign brands have continued to cultivate the high-end product market. In the first half of 2007, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung accounted for a total market share of 61.4% with an increase of 8.9% compared with the same period of last year, and brand concentration rose steadily.

In today's fiercely competitive mobile phone industry, the differentiation strategy has major influences on brand development. Foreign brands such as Nokia and Motorola strive to occupy market share by improving the sales volume of low-end products. The data by CCID Consulting's Research Report on Mobile Phone Market in Jan.-Jun., 2007 reveals that Nokia and Motorola occupied a share of 57% in the 500-700 Yuan mobile phone market and 70% in the less-than- 500 Yuan mobile phone market. Second-line domestic brands have also adjusted their product orientation. According to different market features, they have worked out differentiation product R&D and sales strategies, driven up the mobile phone customization provided by operators, produced dual-G/dual-mode dual-standby mobile phones, stock mobile phones and navigation mobile phones. Through marketing channels, these companies have also actively explored many modes such as TV-based direct selling, network-based direct selling, selling to high-end users and selling to specific areas and aimed to receive active market feedback.

As the data from CCID Consulting shows, compared with the same period of last year, the sales value of Coolpad, HTWChina, K-TOUCH, Changhong, Huawei rose to a certain extent. Lenovo, the first domestic brand, made a solid achievement in sales in 2007 by adopting appropriate marketing strategies, executing strict quality control and process control in brand, product design, production and other processes, and forming its own unique product concept and design planning.

Mobile phone cancer link rejected

2007-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Mobile phone use does not raise the risk of cancer, at least in the first 10 years of use, the largest investigation to date shows. Some past studies had suggested an increased risk of acoustic neuroma - a tumour of the nerve connecting the ear and the brain - but others did not. The latest Institute of Cancer Research work includes data from five European countries and more than 4,000 people. Expert advice is still to limit mobile phone use as a precautionary measure.

There are more than one billion mobile phone users worldwide. Longer follow-up is needed to check that health problems do not arise with many more years of use, the researchers say in the British Journal of Cancer. An independent group for the UK government, led by Sir William Stewart, that looked into the safety of mobile phones in the late 1990s also concluded mobile phones did not appear to harm health. However, the group said there was evidence that radiation from mobile phones could potentially cause adverse health effects, and therefore a "precautionary approach" to their use should be adopted. Precautions The government currently advises mobile phone users to keep their call times short. And children under the age of 16 should use mobile phones for essential calls only, because their head and nervous systems may still be developing. The latest data from the UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, included 678 people with acoustic neuroma and 3,553 without this form of tumour. This revealed no relation between the risk of acoustic neuroma and the number of years for which the mobile phones had been used, the time since first use, total hours of use or total number of calls.

Nor was there any link with analogue or digital phones or whether or not a hands-free kit was used. On balance, the evidence suggests there is no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma in the first decade of use - but the possibility of some effect after longer periods remains open, the researchers concluded. Senior investigator Professor Anthony Swedlow said: "Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology." Dr Michael Clark from the Health Protection Agency said: "This is good news but we still need to be a bit cautious." Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "This study provides further evidence that using mobile phones does not increase the risk of brain tumours. "However, it is important that researchers continue to monitor phone users over the coming years as mobiles are still a relatively new invention." The research is part of a bigger study that will be published next year. A Swedish study identified an increased risk of acoustic neuromas among people who had used mobile phones for 10 years or more. People have been concerned that the radiofrequency from phones might cause cancers, despite the absence of a known biological mechanism for this.

Source BBC news

Google confirms work on mobile phone

2007-04-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

Apple and Google may share a board member, and Google technology may be key to the iPhone, but that hasn't stopped the search giant from working on its own mobile phone. The move has been rumoured for some time, but it has now finally been confirmed to Spanish newspaper Noticias by Google Spain chief Isabel Aguilera.

She told the paper that it was working on the phone, along other projects, as a means of gaining access to information while on the move. The announcement follows Google vacancy postings for telecoms engineers. A phone would be a logical addition to Google's arsenal, as it already has a number of online products optimised for use on mobile devices. Gmail and Google search both have small-screen modes, and its Dodgeball socia

l networking site is designed specifically for mobile phone use.

If it was ever to ship, a mobile phone would only be Google's third hardware product, after two server products: Google Search Appliance and Google Mini.

SanDisk announces 4GB microSDHC card !!!

2007-04-30T15:28:00.001-07:00

SanDisk, in conjunction with Verizon Wireless, has announced a 4GB microSDHC card. microSDHC is the new High Capacity (HC) version of microSD, more information on that is available below. Two Verizon Wireless V Cast handsets are already compatible with the new standard, the LG VX9400 and LG VX8700. According to SanDisk, 4GB is enough for 4,000 photos or 16 hours of video. It also matches, in storage terms, one of the iPod nano configurations.

Verizon Wireless will launch the new 4GB card exclusively on May 1st. The retail price is just $129.99. It's not known when the card will hit other channels.

iPhone attracts 1 million interested customers

2007-04-30T15:27:00.001-07:00

During a keynote speech at CTIA, an AT&T executive noted announced that it has collected information from a million people who want to be contacted when the Apple iPhone begins shipping in June. The company isn't taking pre-orders, so it's hard to tell if the demand is from probable (and able) buyers or not, but AT&T seemed pretty pleased at the number. Apple hopes to sell up to 10 million of the advanced devices. The same keynote presentation included the only appearance of t

he iPhone at CTIA. It was only for a few seconds, but attracted more photos and attention than any other part of the presentation. Apple's secretive approach to marketing is at least successful in terms of producing buzz.

Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold

2007-04-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

The Nokia 8800 Sirocco is quite an elegant phone.. but clearly not snazzy enough for some, so Nokia have come up with the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold.

Underneath the 18 carat gold plating is a practical handset with a 208x208 pixel display, 2 megapixel camera, 128Mb of memory, Bluetooth, an MP3 and FM radio. The screen is scratch-resistant and the sliding function on all 8800 handsets feels reassuringly precise.

Now, taste is a pretty subjective thing and the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold is likely to appeal to people who like its "bling factor" and are prepared to pay out a fairly hefty €1000 / £625 before tax and any subsidy. There's a matching desk stand and Bluetooth headset too.

It's a fairly heavy handset at 139 grams, measuring 107 x 46 x 17mm. The Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold is quoted as have 2 hours 45 minutes talktime and up to 10 days standby time.

If you like this sort of thing, then the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold is likely to remain an exclusive handset with a h

ost of useful features. If you don't like this sort of thing.. and to be honest, it's not our cup of tea, and there are plenty of other Nokias with much better features for a lot less than €1000. However, the 8800 Sirocco Gold certainly looks nicer than the rival Motorola RAZR V3i Gold which is still on sale. Nokia say that the 8800 Sirocco Gold is availabe now in certain markets.

Sony Ericsson W660i

2007-04-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yet another addition to the ever growing series of "Walkman" phones, the Sony Ericsson W660i is a lightweight 3G phone with a 2" 176x220 pixel display, a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, video calling, stereo Bluetooth, MP3 player, a bundled 512MB memory stick, an FM radio and all the familiar multimedia software that we've seen bundled with many other recent "Walkman" handsets.

It's not really a lot different from the W610i, except that the W660i has 3G.. and indeed it's not a whole lot different from the original W800i "Walkman" phone. It fills a niche for a lightweight and relatively inexpensive 3G music phone, and it follows the familiar and popular pattern of Walkman monoblock devices so far.

The Sony Ericsson W660i also has an email client, web browser, RSS reader plus all the usual software goodies that this type of Sony Ericsson phone comes with.

One interesting addition is the optional MPS-75 snap-on speaker set that connects directly to the Fast Port Connector and comes with an integrated FM antenna. The MPS-75 is powered directly by the phone, so no additional cabling is required.

Sony Ericsson say that the W660i should be available from Q2 2007 in Record Black and Rose Red colour combinations.

Sony Ericsson W580i

2007-04-30T15:17:00.002-07:00

The Sony Ericsson W580i is the latest Walkman music phone for the North American market. With yet another music announcement, CTIA's first day has a very familiar feel. The W580i builds on the Walkman platform which has so far been the most successful line of music handsets.

Features of the W580i include:

Quad-band GSM plus EDGe
Walkman 2.0 music player (MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WMA)
512MB Memory Stick Micro in box
2 megapixel camera
Stereo Bluetooth
Just 14mm thick
Full HTML Browser with RSS

The Sony Ericsson W580i will ship in two color combinations, white (shown right) and grey (shown below). It will begin shipping in Q3. Carrier partners have not been announced, but AT&T or T-Mobile would be likely candidates.

Sony Ericsson Z750 HSDPA handset

2007-04-30T15:17:00.001-07:00

The Sony Ericsson Z750 is a new HSDPA handset targeted at North America. What that really means, though not technically announced, is it's destined for AT&T (Cingular). While the 3G connectivity is surely big news (it's Sony Ericsson's first HSDPA phone for North America), the Z750 is also one of only a few consumer focused handsets to support Exchange ActiveSync push email. In addition, the Z750 is Sony Ericsson's first handset based on the Java Platform 8. That should make it easier for developers to create innovative applications.

Features of the Sony Ericsson Z750 include:

Quad-band GSM/EDGE plus tri-band HSDPA (850/1900/2100)
2 megapixel camera
Memory Stick Micro M2 card slot
Bluetooth 2.0 EDR + with A2DP stereo support
QVGA screen with 262k colors
POP3/IMAP4/Exchange email support
Full HTML browser with RSS

The Z750 should begin shipping in the third quarter. It's available in two color schemes, rose pink and phantom grey.