SmartPhones

Armani phone anyone? No, we're completely serious! Ask Steve Ballmer, Microsoft pres.

The unlikely newcomer on the high-tech scene is a high-fashion inspired Samsung smartphone called the Samsung B6720. Just announced last week, the Samsung B6720 will be running on the latest mobile OS from Microsoft, Windows Mobile 6.5 (or WinMo 6.5 for short). But that's not what's such a big deal about it.

The big deal is that there at the official unveiling was none other than world-renowned fashion designer Giorgio Armani whose name and stylistic seal of approval marks the B6720, a high-end smartphone for high-end Armani types. Thus $1,032 price tag.

So this is more an interest story than a practical product announcement for most people (as who can afford to spend over a grand on a phone: or 700 Euros?), but interesting it is indeed. What would an Armani phone look and feel like exactly?

Well, it looks like a slider phone, with a candybar 3.5" AMOLED touchscreen design and a slide-out tilt-screen QWERTY keyboard. It's got 8 gigs of internal memory (plus a microSD card slot for as much as 32 gigs of expandable memory), a video player, 5 megapixel digital camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity, TV-out, an FM radio, a built-in GPS...and of course the status symbol of the king fashion plate GIORGIO ARMANI name emblazoned on its crest.

At the unveiling, the smartphone was introduced as a high-class feature-filled business smartphone for today's business managers. Taking that into consideration, the photos of Steve Ballmer standing beside Giorgio Armani standing beside a Samsung B7620 may actually sell a few of these things after all.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: B6720, Giorgio Armani, Microsoft, Samsung, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5

The Director of the Microsoft Mobile Team Unit for the Greater China region announced the other day that 15 smartphone developers will be releasing over 30 new smartphones by the end of this year that will be running on the upcoming and long-await Windows Mobile OS upgrade - Windows Mobile 6.5.

Among those 15 develops that have Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone launches on the near horizon are: Acer, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, or Toshiba. Among the wireless service carriers that are on-board to carry many of these devices are the big 3 - Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, among the first of these 30 new Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphones to come out will be several from HTC, including the HTC Touch 2 and HTC Tilt 2 (said to be the WinMo equivalent of the TouchPro 2), as well as the Sony Ericsson Xperia2. Following shortly on their heels will be 3 from LG and a WinMo revamped line of Samsung Omnia devices.

What is there to look forward to in the new WinMo update? Home screen widgets, Internet Explorer 6.5, Flash Lite support for IE 6.5, and My Phone, an online file synchronization service.

The official Windows Mobile 6.5 launch date is October 6. People who already have smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.1 will be able to update their OS to WinMo 6.5 at that time with a software patch. And WinMo 6.5 will also be available for sale at the Windows Marketplace app store.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: HTC, Microsoft, Omnia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Tilt 2, Touch 2, TouchPro 2, Windows Marketplace, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5, Xperia X2

The Acer F1 is almost here. The second Acer Snapdragon smartphone, a 3G and 3G+ (HSDPA) Windows Mobile based smartphone (running WinMo 6.5), will be released on October 6, the same day Microsoft will be releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 - and pre-orders for the F1 (for U.K. residents) are being taken now.

The Acer F1 features a 3.8" TFT WVGA touchscreen with a motion accelerometer, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, and built-in FM radio, 3.5 mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi, and GPS. The device also comes with Microsoft's latest mobile web browser upgrade, Internet Explorer Mobile 6.

As for memory, the Acer F1 will come with only 256 MB out of the box, but a microSD card slot supporting as much as 32 GB is built-in. The included Lithium-ion 1350 mAh battery is reported to hold power for about 5 hours of talk-time and 400 hours of standby time.

Snapdragon is the state-of-the-art Qualcomm 8250 1GHz processor.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: 3G, Acer, F1, Internet Explorer Mobile 6, Microsoft, Snapdragon, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5

Playing catch-up to the likes of Samsung and HTC, two other top smartphone makers - Motorola and LG - have both just unveiled their respective inaugural Google Phones, that is the first Motorola smartphone and the first LG smartphone to run on the Google Android OS for mobile devices.

The first at bat was Motorola, working on a Sunday to announce on September 13 its new touchscreen smartphone aimed at social networking and social media lovers - called (appropriately) the Motorola Cliq (i.e. clique). Also known as the Motorola MC9500, this device that one online reviewer called "a lifestyle phone" will be offered by T-Mobile sometime in mid-October.

Integration with Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace is a major part of the Cliq's feature-set; the 5 megapixel camera, meanwhile, lends credence to the other interpretation of the word cliq (or click). Synchronization of these elements with a user's personal data (i.e. contacts, calendar, photos, blog posts, emails, and RSS feeds) into a feature called "Motoblur" is a highlight of this device.

Then yesterday, Monday September 14, 2009 - LG Electronics revealed its LG GW620. Featuring a 3" touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the GW620 is the best of both worlds (at least in the controls department). Little else is known about this tightly-guarded coming attraction.

Don't expect LG to dig its heels too deeply into the Google Android platform, though, as LG still remains a Microsoft Windows Mobile loyalist, with 13 new WinMo smartphones coming out from LG in the next year-and-a-half. In fact, the next LG Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone will be coming out on October 6, that is before the LG GW620 hits European shelves.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, Google, LG, LG-GW620, Motorola, Motorola Cliq, social media, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5

Microsoft has just revealed that the latest version of Windows Mobile is slated for release on October 6, and HTC has just revealed that the first smartphone device to be released running WinMo 6.5, will be the HTC Touch 2. Shortly thereafter, Sony Ericsson will release its first ever WinMo phone, using this new Windows Mobile 6.5, the Xperia X2. And sometime before the twelve days of Christmas are out, LG will have 3 WinMo 6.5 smartphones out (among its 13 new devices promised by New Year's), 2 of those devices sure to be the LG GW550 and the LG GM750.

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 will include a new and improved Internet Explorer Mobile web browser that includes Flash support (something even the iPhone can't yet claim). WinMo 6.5 also features the Microsoft My Phone back-up service, immensely popular in Beta and finally taken out of Beta for full release for the first time. And WinMo 6.5 it will include the long-awaited Windows Marketplace for Moble app store.

But more than anything, this is an OS improvement, as Microsoft attempts to regain some serious ground lost to rivals RIM, Google, and Apple. For a more feature-filled upgrade, stay tuned for WinMo 7.0. It's biggest and best improvement - perhaps - no more need for the stylus. Windows Mobile 6.5 is "finger friendly" they say.

Meanwhile, a quote released by one of Motorola's senior engineers (ironic because Motorola has all but proposed to Google Android) suggests that WinMo 7.0 is already in manufacturer's hand in Beta. ,Supposedly according to LinkedIn leaks, Windows Mobile 7.0 will include a Microsoft Mobile version of Internet Explorer 7.0 or even 8.0, as well as a digital compass, an accelerometer, Nickname Cache, and Windows Live ID, among others.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Christmas, GM750, GW550, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, Touch2, Windows Mobile, WinMo 6.5, WinMo 7.0, Xperia 2

While the mainstream press is focused on the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, we'd like to talk about the Microsoft-Nokia deal: in particular, what will it do for smartphones?

For one, it will bring a Microsoft Office enterprise version to Symbian smartphones. Plus new Nokia devices will ship with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile built in. Also, the new team-up plans to use Exchange ActiveSync to optimize corporate customers' data access.

But in the live teleconference call yesterday in which the partnership was announced, a Microsoft exec professed that this was by no means all there was to the arrangement.

In a much larger context, Microsoft hopes to dislodge RIM and its Blackberry from its domination of the mobile enterprise market. Plus, Microsoft is eager to benefit from Nokia's 200 million subscriber base while Nokia is eager to benefit from Microsoft's U.S. presence.

Strange, though, is that Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS and Nokia's Symbian mobile OS will still compete with one another in the platform wars.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: ActiveSync, Blackberry, enterprise, Exchange, Microsoft, Nokia, Office, RIM, Symbian, Windows Mobile

HTC is finally getting rid of Windows Mobile in place of the new and improved Google Android mobile platform, Android 1.5 Cupcake, with its HTC Lancaster, billed as "The Consumer Social Messaging Device".

The Lancaster is not HTC's first Android smartphone, but it is its first to be carried by AT&T. To boot, the HTC Lancaster is AT&T's first Android device. It's got most of the usual features you would expect from a modern smartphone, plus a slide-out keyboard and HTC's own unique social messaging interface.

Other big releases coming out from HTC any day now include the HTC Warhawk (aka the Touch Diamond2) and the HTC Fortress (aka the Touch Pro2). And other big upcoming releases from AT&T include the Palm Eos (the WebOS-enabled successor to the Palm Centro), the touchscreen Samsung Infinity, and two from Motorola: the feature-filled Sawgrass with built-in blogging interface, and the Heron, as it turns out another premiere Android smartphone from AT&T.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, Android 1.5 Cupcake, AT&T, blogging, Cupcake, Google, HTC, HTC Fortress, HTC Lancaster, HTC Touch Diamond2, HTC Touch Pro2, HTC Warhawk, Motorola, Motorola Heron, Motorola Sawgrass, Palm, Palm Centro, Palm Eos, social messaging, WebOS, Windows Mobile

Acer has released a few more details about its next two smartphones. Until now known solely as makers of computers, this February at the Mobile World Congress Acer unveiled its first line of smartphones which it calls its Tempo line.

The DX900 supports both 2G and 3G connections. Acer calls the it the first dual-standby and dual-SIM smartphone the world has ever seen. It's an HSDPA Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with a 2.8" display screen. Looking at the list of countries in which the device has been released it seems the only place that doesn't have it is the U.S.

Coming soon to Asian and European stores will be the Acer X960. It's also a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone, but it has a keyboard where the DX900 does not. The X960 also sports a better digital camera (though only slightly better), with 3.2 megapixels to the DX900's 3.0.

Also in the works is an Acer smartphone that runs on the Google Android OS.

Don't hold your breath for any Acer smartphones - Tempo, Google, or otherwise - to come your way if you live in the United States though. Apparently Acer smartphones won't be coming to America until 2010.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Acer, DX900, Google Android, Mobile World Congress, Tempo, Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile 6.1, X960

Even those of us not lucky enough to put our lives on hold to travel to Beijing or sit glued to our TVs can still keep up with all the latest goings-on at this year's Olympics with their smartphones.

Thanks to Google (of course) anyone with an internet-enabled smartphone can visit Google's summergames page for mobile devices and get all the updated information they could possibly want on almost 40 Olympic events. Among the information listed there is the full schedule of each event and the winners (once known). Best of all, the mobile site is available in more than 60 countries and in 36 languages.

Video coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics is also available for people on a BlackBerry or a Palm OS or Windows Mobile device, through MobiTV.

Alternatively, sports fans can also hook themselves up with a SlingMedia Slingbox and redirect any program coming through their television to their smartphone device - including NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
The Slingbox, however, is the only option with an extra up front cost (for both the box and the mobile software), and is available on Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Palm OS devices.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: 2008 Olympics, 2008 Summer Olympics, Blackberry, Google, MobiTV, NBC, Olympics, Palm, Palm OS, Slingbox, SlingMedia, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile

It was last November that Google announced their entry into the smartphone OS battle (alongside Symbian, RIM BlackBerry OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and of course the inimitable iPhone) but we have yet to see the first Google Android smartphone on the market. Well that is soon about to change.

A British chip maker named ARM has released a prototype of its unbranded handset running the Google Android operating system, equipped with:

• email (provided by Gmail)
• text messaging
• multimedia apps
• internet browser (with Google as the default home page)
• Google Calendar functionality
• GoogleMaps software

Meanwhile, Google's own engineering director has unveiled an Android smartphone prototype as well, this the Google branded GPhone. While Google won't be manufacturing the GPhones itself, it aims to design the basic handset in such a way that manufacturers of all capacities can still deliver a quality, Google-worthy product. The first of these looks to pack the equivalent power of the iPhone into a smaller, tighter package (and that includes the screen size).

The first Google Android smartphones are expected to hit markets later in the year.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, ARM, BB OS, Blackberry, British, Gmail, Google, GoogleCalendar, GoogleMaps, iphone, Microsoft, RIM, Symbian, text messaging, Windows Mobile