News

Toshiba announced on Monday the innovative G450, a USB modem with a built-in MP3 player and mobile phone. The stylish G450 features a display and 2 circular keypads for using the phone and MP3 player features. However, it also hides a full USB plug, so that you can easily plug it directly into your laptop for high-speed data connectivity and charging.

The Toshiba G450 will be available in three color choices and sports tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900MHz) and WCDMA (2100MHz), along with 160MB of internal storage. The phone functions of this unique handset are accessible through the 96x39 pixel OLED display.

The Toshiba G450 is planned to be available in Q1 2008, though pricing is not yet available.

Asus keep us our attention busy these days with several announcements from the CeBIT IT show in Hannover. The high-end devices are Asus P560, Asus P320 also known as Galaxi Mini, Asus M536 and ASUS Lamborghini ZX1 running on 3D-like customized Windows Mobile 6.1 UI.

Asus P560

Asus P560 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS PocketPC which also supports UMTS/HSDPA connectivity. The device runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 OS and has 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen display. Though its processor is still unknown, the 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB ROM are among the listed details.

P560 is a communication expert with its Bluetooth 2.0, WI-FI 802.11b/g and built-in GPS. The multimedia features include a 3 megapixel camera and a secondary VGA one for video calling.

SanDisk Corporation, the proven leader in flash memory, today announced it has begun to sample 12-gigabyte (GB) microSDHC flash memory cards to major phone manufacturers for testing and evaluation. The 12GB card represents a 50 percent boost in card capacity from SanDisk's industry-leading 8GB microSDHC cards, which are currently available worldwide, and highlights the growing popularity of mobile phones with storageintensive features that include music players, digital cameras, video recording and playback and GPS capabilities.

"Mobile phones have become a key part of consumers' lifestyles around the globe," said Jeff Kost, senior vice president and general manager of the Mobile Consumer Solutions division at SanDisk. "What many people tend to overlook is the important role that removable storage cards play in enabling the key features of these fully featured mobile phones. In fact, many people are not even aware that their phone has a card slot which is why SanDisk recently launched its Wake Up Your Phone campaign."

Now, this is one special phone. It has one feature that probably no one would have guessed. It features bone conduction to transmit sound .This handset can conduct voice through bone by vibration. Bone conduction means sound wave is conducted through people's skull by vibration and further to inner ear to let people hear.

In this way, the sound of the person on the other line is actually channeled through your bones from your ear (or just behind your ear). This makes it easier to hear conversations in loud environments, because the sound is being conducted directly to your inner ear. This will help old people and people with auditory handicap too.

"A1407PT" is very useful for employees who frequently leave for outside duty since this handset can be conveniently used in noisy places such as construction site, interchange with heavy traffic and subway station.

Especially, A1407PT is designed to make use of "Bone conduction " function and you can only press the side key with the main body closed to make a call and talk with bone conduction speaker with the folder closed. Volume control is also available with the side key.

Attached 6cm wide QVGA class LCD and large characters displayed, even the weak-sighted elderly can easily use this handset. Also, three one-touch buttons are arranged below LCD screen considering difficulty of keys operation for old people and dialing to a frequently used number can be made by simply pressing one of them just like using a short key.

Sony Ericsson Alicia went live today for the first time. The front surface has two displays, one small square one on top of the larger circular one, which also acts as a control pad for music, weather, and other apps. This makes the Sony Ericsson W707 the first GSM to feature three screens.

Samsung has introduced the new Highnote, a dual-slider with numeric keypad featuring a 2 megapixel camera for quick photos and a microSD card slot on board. The Highnote's support for the Sprint Music Store makes it easy to load up your favorite tunes.

The Samsung Highnote is set to be available on October 19th in red or blue colour schemes and will be priced at $99.99 with a 2-year commitment, after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Yesterday Sprint and Motorola unveiled the Motorola i576 for the Nextel iDEN network. The handset features Bluetooth connectivity for headsets and on-board GPS navigation and is one of the smallest iDEN handsets on the market.

The i576 will be available on October 19th for US$69.99 with a two year service agreement with Sprint Nextel.

Nokia today released a note to investors that adjusted the company's forecast for its Q3 market share estimates. Back in July the company had told investors that it expected to maintain its current worldwide market share of 40%. Now the company is saying that its market share will be slightly lower due to competitive pressures and new handset delays. From the press release:

"Nokia's current estimate that its mobile device market share in the third quarter 2008 will be lower than previously expected is due to multiple factors. These factors include Nokia's tactical decision to not meet certain aggressive pricing of some competitors, the overall market competition, including the entry markets, and the temporary impact of a slower ramp-up of a mid-range Nokia device. Nokia's strategy is to take market share only when the company believes it to be sustainably profitable in the longer term. Nokia has not broadly participated in the recent aggressive pricing activity - as it believes that the negative impact to profitability would outweigh any short term incremental benefits to device unit sales."

Information has surfaced regarding the pending release of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 on AT&T.

The device is expected to be nearly identical to the version sold on T-Mobile with the addition of the AT&T suite of services (AT&T Music, Mail, IM, Push to Talk, Navigator support through Bluetooth GPS unit) as well as an upgrade to BlackBerry OS 4.5, which is expected to add the HTML browser from the soon to be launched Bold, and the capability to use voice services and data simultaneously while using the built-in Wi-Fi radio.

The device is expected to be launched at the end of this month, though no specific date or pricing details are known at this time.

Today the new S740 was u nveiled by HTC. The phone features a 2.4" QVGA display, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 256MB of internal storage and a whopping 256MB of application RAM, a microSD memory card slot which provides extra storage room for media files and apps, WiFi and Bluetooth, an FM radio and GPS navigation module.

The handset comes equipped with 7.2Mbps HSDPA 3G support for the 900 and 2100MHz frequency bands, as well as quad-band GSM/EDGE support.

The 1000mAh battery should provide for up to 6.3/5.3 hours of GSM/UMTS talk time or 11.6/16.6 days of GSM/UMTS standby time. The HTC S740 is scheduled to become available across Europe in September of this year. No word yet on pricing or specific carrier availability.