With Sony Ericsson’s inaugural Windows Mobile device set to be launched in the coming days, the handset maker has revealed that it had to convince Microsoft to embrace plans to make the Windows interface more user-friendly. To take the device beyond Windows’ traditional business roots, Sony Ericsson has added a user-friendly front end to the OS in the form of nine customizable panel icons. The panels enable users to run applications straight off the desktop, rather than digging through the Windows menu structure to find them.
There is a man in Russia who builds new cases for mobile phones from apple tree
wood. He fully disassembles new handsets and carves an individual wooden case for each device, giving them unique little touches.
Each small part gets its own wooden case – the antenna, the sim-card, the battery. The SIM card is given a tiny wooden box of its own. The antenna is also inserted into a wooden sleeve.
It makes a change from all that steel, chrome and titanium – although as time wore on and it got dropped, bashed and generally abused through everyday use, there might be a danger of splinters…
In a world where the choice of mobile is bewildering and the land-fill needed to cope gets ever larger, it turns out wooden phones are nothing new. Hulger launched a wooden phone made out of African Ziricote hardwood which, to be fair, is virtually indestructible. It would be immune to the usual handset accidents that happen from time to time.
While mine is more likely to include being dropped on to a concrete surface from pocket height, the Hulger phone is resistant to fire (within reason), a 15-metre drop or having two tons of rock on top of the device (how do they know?).
The Hulger Wooden phone (right) is, like its Russian counterpart, intended to appeal for its looks rather than its ruggedness. Oh, it costs £3,885. Sitting on the same high-price shelf the Mobiado range in ebony (with ultra-light titanium buttons and the like) – a snip at around £1,500.
Wood can be waxed, polished and gives us a unique tactile experience: tough, smooth and, above all, natural. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG – let’s have more!
Written by: Nicola Pringle for Mobiles Please.
We have spoken on the last podcast about the disappointment that we felt when we heard the news that Windows Mobile 7 would be delayed until the second half of next year and now after giving it some thought over the last few days maybe it is not such a bad thing that they are delaying it, as long as it is for the right reasons. The way I see it is there could be two reasons for the delay and let us consider what each of these reasons could be.
Another video hands on of the HTC Touch HD, this time it reveals that the camera has point focus, this basically means you can touch the screen when in camera mode and the focus of the camera will be aimed at that part of the view finder, it is a nice feature to have and matched with the 5 MPX lens it should make for a good experience. Another point they make is the sensitivity of the screen, they say it is very sensitive which is good to hear. Video after the break with some good comparisons with the iPhone 3G.
One thing missing when you compare the HTC Diamond and the later released HTC Touch Pro was the tilt sensor calibration application under settings. Well now you can download a hot fix direct from the HTC support site which gives you the ability to calibrate your tilt sensor on your HTC Diamond. This hot fix can only be installed on devices with ROM version 1.93.XXX.X or above. To check your ROM version tap Start > Settings > System tab > Device Information to confirm the ROM version. You can get the fix from HTC here.
We posted a while back (here, here and here) about the problems with the iPhone 3G no longer charging through the old Firewire charging pins and the trouble this caused with iPod docks but most commonly with car integration kits. Well a solution has just been announced which should be available from the 1st October and the guys tell me they ship worldwide. I have placed an order for one and will publish a full review when I get it. Full details of the converter after the break.
Last night I attended the official LG KC910 (aka LG Renoir) launch event here in London. The KC910 picks up where the LG Viewty left off and boast a number is incredibly features such as being the worlds thinnest 8 megapixel camera phone with Schneider-Kreuznach certified optics, xenon flash, image stabiliser, auto-focus, manual focus, Face Tracking, Smile Shot and blink detection. It can record video from 5 frames per second (FPS) up to 120 FPS, allowing it to record in both slow and fast motion. It also plays DivX and Xvid movies straight out of the box, without the need for additional encoding.
The LG KC910 Renoir
I recorded much of the official part of the launch which you can see below. The Renoir will be available soon on all of the UK networks as well as there being a SIM-free version.
LG KC910 Specification:
- 8 mp Camera with Xenon flash and Schneider-Kreuznach optics
- 30 FPS video recording at 640×480, 60 FPS at 320×240
- Internal GPS w/ Geotagging
- Dolby Audio
- Divx/Xvid support
- Manual Focus
- Smile, focus, face detection, Image stabilization
- Quad-band GSM, HSDPA 7.2 mbps
- Bluetooth Yes.v2.0 with A2DP
- Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML,HTML
- Built-in GPS receiver
- Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots),32- 48 kbps
- EDGE Yes
- 3G HSDPA,7.2 Mbps
- WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
- USB Yes,v2.0
- Document viewer- DOC,XLS,PDF
- MicroSD up to 8GB
- 3″ touchscreen, 240×400 with Haptic feedback
- TV out support
- Dimensions 107.8 x 55.9 x 14 mm
- Weight 114 g.
We should be getting our hands on the LG KC910 within the next week or so and you can expect our unboxing video and review to follow shortly after.
Sorry the video isn’t great – it was another dark event and there were lots of people standing in the way and I was also using my old camcorder as Steve had the good one for his trip to Lund with Sony Ericsson. However, hopefully you’ll be able to hear the relevant bits!
If you were there and I didn’t get to talk to you then drop me a line!
Posted by: Matt
Just spotted this video over at Jason Langridges blog and I thought it should be shared as a little bit of Friday humour is always good to have. If your partner gives you a hard time over the amount of gadgets you have this should appeal to you, check it out after the break for a bit of clever light hearted fun. Think I will try and make this a regular Friday post.
Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile with support for Windows Mobile devices and the Beta went online recently. Unfortunately Adobe didn’t put a lot of thought into the name given to this as users could be mislead into thinking that this is a fully mobile version of the much used and loved Photoshop photo editing suite when infact it is nothing like that.
According to their website this service is described as:
Upload, view, and share photos on the go
Adobe® Photoshop.com Mobile is the easiest way to upload, view, and share your photos online from your phone. All you need is a supported Windows Mobile® phone and your Photoshop.com account ID. Photoshop.com Mobile beta will be available as a free download in September.
KEY FEATURES
Upload from the road
Have Photoshop.com Mobile upload photos from your phone to your Photoshop.com account as soon as you take them. You can store up to 2GB of photos there free. (Note: Photoshop.com Plus members get 20GB. Learn more)
Access anywhere
At a party, in a meeting, on the road — view your online photos and albums from your phone, wherever you are.
Share with friends and family
Create a Mobile Share album right from your phone to show the world, or invite friends and family to view your photos online from Photoshop.com.
The support for devices is very limited just not with support on only:
Whilst this does not set my pulse racing I do think its a very good idea by Adobe and with there being 2GB worth of FREE space we cant be seen to grumble too much.
Service at the moment will be restricted to US customers only and will go live sometime before the end of September.
Posted by: John
The 8 megapixel full touchscreen Samsung M8800 seems to have been announced today – rather quietly in fact. And it’s already been previewed by a Russian team, who provided some nice images along the way.
The Samsung M8800, be it Bresson or Pixon, is the second 8 megapixel handset by Samsung, following the Symbian-powered Samsung i8510 INNOV8 .
The Samsung M8800 however is not a smartphone and has no keyboard but a 3.2-inch touchscreen display and has the same TouchWiz interface as the Samsung Omnia and Samsung F480 Tocco, however this time they’ve added Weather and Google widgets.
Samsung M8800 is called either Bresson or Pixon
True, it’s not a smartphone, but the Samsung M8800 has an impressive specs sheet, which includes goodies such as:
- Quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA
- 107.9×54.6×14.9mm, 110 g
- 3.2-inch touch screen display (240 x 400 pixels)
- 8 megapixel camera with auto focus, face recognition with smile detection and blink detection. WDR (wide dynamic range), ASR (advanced shake reduction), GPS geotagging, ISO 1600, WVGA (720×480 pixels) and VGA (640 x 480 pixels) @30fps video recording
- Built-in GPS receiver
- Accelerometer
- DivX playback
- FM radio with RDS
- microSD card slot
- Bluetooth
- Landscape virtual QWERTY keyboard
- Handwriting recognition
- ShoZu integration – direct image and video upload
- Office document viewer
Samsung M8800 next to Samsung i900 Omnia
Unfortunately, the lack of Wi-Fi functionality is a bit of a downer and would make it hard to compete with the rivaling LG KC910 Renoir.
The Samsung M8800 is set to start shipping as early as 10 November 2008 at a starting price of 550 euro (800 US dollars).
Posted by: John
Source: GSM Arena
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