Month: February 2008

“The Zumobi developers have announced a new interface version for Windows Mobile 6 (Classic, Professional and Standard). Zumobi is a dynamic mobile widget application to access web content delivered to your phone in an innovative and new way. Here you can download a version of Zumobi, which is completely free. According to the developers, the update comes with lots of improvements directly related to the users’ feedback: Smaller installation file Significant performance improvements First time sync within 5 minutes of first run “Exit” Zumobi from within the application Improved placement of new Tiles from the Gallery Single installation file for both touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices” via mobile-review.com

“An eagle-eyed member of InternetTabletTalk.com noticed this interesting image of the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet in the February edition of the Best Buy Mobile buyer’s guide. Showing the tablet off on page 23 in a very sexy black outfit with an orange-backlit keyboard, Best Buy Mobile might have let the cat out of the bag a bit early.It makes sense that this might be the rumored WiMax version, due to the color change. That would be a great way to differentiate between the regular N810 and the WiMax one. Personally, I think we’ll see this puppy launched at the CTIA Wireless event coming up in the first part of April. WiMax is set to launch in the U.S. with Sprint (and various other partners) towards the end of the summer, so it would make sense for Nokia to announce it then. It doesn’t look like they changed anything other than the colors, and there’s no details given in the Best Buy Mobile ad, so who knows if they’ve upped the ante with any new features.I have to say, while I’m madly in love with the way my N810 currently looks, I’m definitely lusting over the notion of an all black number, what about you?EDIT: Daniel over at TabletBlog.com has noticed that if you zoom in a bit, it looks as though the model is the N830, which would further indicate this being the WiMax version.” via tablet-guru.com

“Palm has made the Centro smartphone available on the AT&T network today. The AT&T Centro debuts in Glacier white with a green accented thumboard. It is available online now at Palm.com and at AT&T retail stores for $99 with a 2-year service agreement and mail-in rebate. An “Obsidian” black version will be available in a month. The AT&T Centro is a quad-band GSM/EDGE smartphone running Palm OS Garnet v5.4.9. It has a 320×320 pixel touchscreen display, Bluetooth v1.2, a 1.3 megapixel digital camera with video capture and 64MB of memory. For memory expansion it has a microSD slot. The Centro has dimensions of 4.22″ (L) x 2.11″ (W) x 0.73″ (D) (107 x 54 x 18.5 mm) and weighs in at 4.2 oz (119g). Palm’s imaginary battery life rating is 4 hours talk time with 300 hours standby. It has a 1150 mAh capacity. In addition to the interesting choice of keyboard color, the AT&T Centro also packs in some unique new software features. It is the first Palm OS device to ship with out the box AT&T Push to Talk support. The Nextel like service enables you to share presence information and have walkie-talkie like communications with other AT&T push to talk subscribers. Users can purchase unlimited Push to Talk minutes with Nation Plans for $9.99 a month for each line and with FamilyTalk for $19.99 a month for each group (two to five lines). Customers also can use Push to Talk on a pay-per-use basis for $0.15 a minute. The GSM/AT&T version also includes the more modern and user friendly phone interface and home screen which first debuted on the Treo 680. The AT&T Centro also includes a Instant Messaging application which supports the AOM AIM, Windows Messenger and Yahoo! IM services. This application treats individual IM’s as sms text messages, so your standard messaging fee’s will apply. The device also includes a built in voice dialing application powered by VoiceSignal and a link to download MobiTV. AT&T also makes a number of additional subscription based services available on the Centro. XM Mobile provides 25 channels of commercial free streaming radio for $8.99/mo. TeleNav’s GPS and navigation service is also available, but requires an additional Bluetooth GPS receiver. MusicID is another interesting service that aims to identify popular song’s and artists via a quick recording. The service costs $3.99 a month and can currently identify over 3 million titles. The Palm Centro from AT&T is available at all AT&T retail stores and “>online for $99.99 after a two-year service agreement and a mail-in rebate. Unlimited e-mail and data access is available for $30 a month with AT&T’s PDA Personal data package with a corresponding voice plan. Messaging packages are available beginning at $5 for 200 text, picture, video or instant messages. Unlimited messaging is available for $20 for individual plans and $30 for FamilyTalk plans. For more information about the AT&T Centro be sure to read our Centro review or visit Palm.com for more details. ” via palminfocenter.com

“With the world’s eyes on the 3GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it seems that we overlooked a handheld of particular interest–the Nokia E71. Fortunately, CNET Australia’s Joseph Hanlon was lucky enough to see a “secret” comparison picture of the E71 with the E61 at the Showcase Nokia event held in Sydney recently.Information is usually scant at this stage, though the handset is purported to come with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSD expansion card slot, QWERTY keyboard, 3.2-megapixel camera, and onboard GPS.I think one of the reasons we are excited about this device is because the E61 had been one of the best smartphones of its time. Even though its successor–the E61i–didn’t bring much to the plate besides the inclusion of a camera module and better build quality, it offered users who wanted a camera on their handheld an alternative to choose from. And what better than to have it on an already successful device?There hasn’t been an official announcement of the E71 yet, but I’m sure we aren’t too far away from seeing it. More details to follow once we have them. “ via crave.cnet.com

“Taiwan-based OpenMoko, a Linux-based open source handset platform developer, plans to launch the second version of its Neo open source handset in the March-April period this year, according to company president Sean Moss-Pultz.In addition to pushing sales of its open source handsets, OpenMoko will also engage in the production of hardware devices in cooperation with device vendors, leveraging on OpenMoko’s platform solutions and manufacturing capability, Moss-Pultz said.Under the policy, OpenMoko has teamed up with Dash to develop Dash Express portable navigation device (PND), with Dash to be responsible for application developments and marketing of the PND, Moss-Pultz noted.In the future, open source handsets will account for two-thirds of OpenMoko’s total revenues, with the remaining one-third coming from joint production with device partners, Moss-Pultz added.: via digitimes.com

” Motorola Inc. sued Research In Motion Ltd. claiming the Canadian company’s BlackBerry wireless e-mail device violates seven U.S. patents covering mobile-communications technology. Motorola, the biggest U.S. maker of mobile phones, said Research In Motion is using the inventions without permission and asked a federal judge in Marshall, Texas, to order a stop. Motorola also is seeking cash compensation for past infringement of the inventions, according to the complaint filed Feb. 16. Research In Motion “willfully” infringed the patents, causing “irreparable harm,” Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola said in the complaint. Research In Motion has more than 8 million subscribers in North America. AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and other phone companies pay the Waterloo, Ontario-based company a fee of about $6 a month for each subscriber that uses BlackBerry e-mail. The lawsuit targets Research In Motion’s 8100, 8130, 8320, 8800, 8820 and 8830 model devices, as well as BlackBerry Exchange Server software. The technology includes a method of storing contact information in wireless e-mails, a way of recognizing incoming phone numbers, a way of controlling access to new applications on a wireless-messaging device and ways to improve functions on the menu-driven interface of a phone handset, court papers show.” via bloomberg.com

“Sprint this morning launched both the Samsung ACE (SPH-i325) and the Samsung SPH-M520. Both devices are now available from Sprint’s web site.The ACE, as we previously reported, is the CDMA version of the popular BlackJack line, combining elements from both existing BlackJack models. The Ace offers both GPS navigation and Sprint TV as well as Sprint Music Store access. Also, the ACE doubles as a GSM 1800/800 world phone for international roaming. Shipping with Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard, it is not clear if, or when the device will be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.1.The ACE is available for $199.99 with new two-year agreement, $449.99 without contract.In addition, Sprint has also launched the Samsung SPH-M520, the slider replacement to the SPH-M510, which we have also covered previously. The M520 will retail for $49.99 with new two-year agreement, $249.99 without contract.” via phonenews.com

“While Sony Ericsson do not reveal the inside OS of XPERIA X1, terminal.hu has did a great job on the screen shot. The system properties unveiled the OS version, the XPERIA X1 will be running the newer Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. The XPERIA X1 is powered by a Qualcomm 7200A 528MHz cpu, has a 128MB built in memory and 800 x 480 wide screen.” via slashphone.com

“Regular readers will know we’re not shy when it comes to making top 10 lists, such as the ten worst RPG plots, ten reasons why mobile games are completely awesome or the ten most anticipated PSP games of 2008, but when it came to putting together the top 10 phones in terms of 3D performance we really didn’t have to do any of the hard work.Instead, we’re relying on the smarts of Hungarian tech company Kishonti, which specialises in measuring the performance of mobile devices. As with the similar benchmarks for different PC graphics cards, its GLBenchmark test runs standardised graphics on a phone and then works out how fast the phone can process them.There are some caveats, of course. The results given are the test for OpenGL ES 1.0 performance, which is one of the industry graphics standards, so we’re not saying these are the best phones for 3D gaming, let alone the best phones for gaming in terms of control or usability, only that this is measure of the device’s technical performance when it comes to OpenGL ES 1.0 processing.Equally, there can be performance differences from phones of different manufacturers depending on how well the test itself is set up something that got very heated in the PC graphics card battles between Nvidia and ATI. We’re not technical enough to know those sort of details about mobiles so we’re relying on Kishonti to get this right.But the list is significant for us consumers in that Nokia’s high-end devices hold the top spots with the top three phones all using Texas Instruments’ OMAP 2 technology. A couple of Dell’s PDAs are listed, while Motorola’s Z8 is perhaps a surprise entry at number 8. In comparison, though, the top Sony Ericsson phones only offer around half the 3D performance of Nokia’s best, but they’re still twice as fast as Nokia’s N81 phone (ranked a mere 22nd), which is the company’s lead device in terms of the new N-Gage gaming platform.Anyhow, all excuses aside, this is the breakdown as provided on February 14th 2008, while the number of frames in brackets is the numerical measure of performance as provided via the GLBenchmark test.1. Nokia N93 (442 frames)2. Nokia N93i (433 frames)3. Nokia N95 (413 frames)4. Dell Axim X51v (412 frames)5. Nokia N95 8GB (395 frames)6. Nokia N82 (392 frames)7. Dell Axim X50v (390 frames)8. Motorola RIZR Z8 (389 frames)9. Nokia E90 (386 frames)=10. SonyEricsson W950i (171 frames)=10. SonyEricsson M600i (171 frames)=10. SonyEricsson P990i (171 frames)=10. SonyEricsson P1i (171 frames)” via pocketgamer.co.uk

“Samsung was showing off two new finger-touch phones at MWC this year: the F480 and F490. Unfortunately, both are tri-band GSM for Europe and Asia, so they won’t be offered directly in the States, and we wouldn’t really recommend them for use the US. However, the two phones represent Samsung’s second generation of finger-touch phones, and run a new version of Samsung’s finger-touch UI. We hope to see similar phones for the US announced at CTIA in a few weeks. ” More photos here: