Day: July 10, 2006

“Some people call it the mother of all smartphones, and rightly so. Sony Ericsson’s P990i cell phone has been granted approval by the FCC, ensuring it reaches our grubby l’il hands. The phone boasts Symbian OS 9.1 as well as the upgraded UIQ 3 platform.How soon can we expect this baby? I’d guess sometime in August would be good. We’ve been waiting a long time for UIQ 3 and it’ll be interesting to see what Sony Ericsson has done with it. Like its predecessors, the P990i features the familiar Jog Dial to scroll around the menu items.A Task Manager is integrated, allowing you to switch between tasks. The phone supports Memory Stick PRO Duo media. Our coverage of the Sony Ericsson P990i Cell Phone is also available.Highlights:Bluetooth 2.0 IrDa WLAN 802.11b High speed UMTS modem (384 kbps) Word, excel and PowerPoint viewers/editors (text only) Adobe PDF viewer Opera 8.0 web browser with landscape full screen support RSS news feeds support” via mobilewhack.com

“Tripod Data System (TDS) has updated its Recon series of rugged handheld computers. The new Recon-X series PDAs feature twice as much Flash memory (up to 256 MB) as the original, along with optional built-in Bluetooth and 802.11g WiFi. A Linux-based version will begin beta testing next week, and ship in July or early August. TDS’s rugged PDAs come standard with Microsoft operating systems, but are available with Linux through distributor SDG Systems. SDG was originally contracted to port Linux to TDS’s rugged PDAs by 10East, a vertical market vendor serving the railroad industry. Mike Wilson, of 10East, explains, “10East has provided ongoing funding to SDG Systems for the Linux porting of this product line, just so we could provide the very best handheld technology to our rail market. We are not interested in business outside of the rail market, so we have worked out an arrangement with Todd Blumer and TDS that enables Todd’s company to service all other market segments.”Blumer says SDG is currently readying a beta Linux implementation for the Recon-X series PDAs. Blumer said, “We expect to release the product with beta software in about a week, with a shipping release by the end of July or early August. The pricing will be the same as for the Recon X-Series with Windows Mobile.” ” More at linuxdevices.com

“Rumor says LG is preparing an upcoming chocolate phone KG99 with 9.9mm slim body. The phone keypad is 4 in a row, putting the *, 0 and # key at the side instead of bottom. Offering 256k colors display screen, the KG99 has a music player as well as an internal FM radio receiver. Good news is microSD slot is available, you can have more rooms for music files on top of the internal memory. Unconfirm specificationsSpecificationsMode GSM Triband 900 / 1800 / 1900Dimensions 95 x 52 x 9.9 mmBattery Type Lithium-IonBattery Life unknownWeight 73 grams Display 2,62,000 colors, TFT (176 x 220)External Display -Expansion Slot microSDBuilt-in Memory unknownCamera YesConnectivityGPRS, Bluetooth, Java, MMS, SMS, WAPOthersFM Radio, Mp3 Player” via slashphone.com

“Sony Europe’s Recording Media & Energy (RME) division today announced the launch of the new 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. Sony Memory Stick media are available in capacities ranging from 128MB to 4GB depending on their format (Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick PRO High Speed and Memory Stick Micro) and are easily identifiable through a revitalised Sony packaging design, incorporating colour coding for easy identification of the different format line-ups as well as the different capacity. In addition, all Memory Stick Duo and PRO Duo media now come complete with a standard size Memory Stick adaptor to enable use with standard size Memory Stick compatible devices – as well as the Duo size compatible products.The increased storage capacity of the 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo media enables the users to hold large amounts of multimedia data including digital photos, music files, videos and games as well as increasingly popular podcasts and video blogs. Users will be able to store up to 1000 MP3 songs, 3000 digital photos in 5 megapixel resolution or more than 9 hours of MPEG-4 video* on a 4GB Memory Stick, making it ideal for mobile entertainment – especially given the increasing number of available data hungry applications.At one-third the size and half the weight of the standard-size Memory Stick cards, the Memory Stick Duo, PRO Duo and PRO Duo High Speed currently represent the most versatile format in the Memory Stick range. Many recently launched products such as digital still cameras and camcorders, mobile phones, notebook computers and the Sony PSP, feature a Memory Stick PRO Duo slot as standard. All Memory Stick PRO Duo media offer a minimum write speed of 15Mb/s, providing fast performance for activities such as video recording and multi-shooting, which use demanding digital imaging applications and require fast transfer of large files.The new Memory Stick PRO Duos are robust and capable of operating in extreme working conditions, making them suitable for use in both hot and low temperatures and come complete with a 5 year warranty providing peace of mind for its customers. In addition, a free to download file rescue software enables the quick recovery of deleted photographs and other files which have been lost or deleted.The new Memory Stick Duo line-up with the new packaging design and inclusive adaptor will be introduced in Summer 2006. The 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo media will be available from summer 2006 and will cost approximately €170.”

“How Vodafone Germany announced today, the second largest German carrier will also launch the HTC Hermes during this summer and is therefore following T-Mobile which recently announced to launch the HTC Hermes as T-Mobile MDA Vario II and O2 Germany which announced to launch it as O2 Xda trion. The tri-band UMTS/3G Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition also sports GSM, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a mini-USB port, making data transfer simple – anytime, anywhere. The VPA compact III comes equipped with a slide-out, ergonomic QWERTZ (since it is a German device) keyboard and 2.8 color display with touch-screen. It also features a jog wheel for easy, one-hand operation. Interesting enough, Vodafone selects the HTC TyTN ID which looks slightly different to O2’s Xda trion ID:Vodafone plans to launch the device during July this year. With a 24 month contract, it will retail for 409,50 Euro; without a contract the VPA compact III will costs 899,50 Euro!” via theunwired.net