Samsung have announced a pair of touchscreen cellphones, the Samsung Star S5230 and the Samsung Preston S5600. A 2.5G and 3G handset respectively, the Star and Preston both use Samsung’s TouchWiz GUI: the S5230 has a 3-inch WQVGA display, while the S5600 has a 2.8-inch QVGA panel.
A pre-production BlackBerry Curve 8520 has fallen into the esteemed hands of CrackBerry, and they’ve done the honorable thing and thoroughly reviewed it. Intended as an entry-level handset, the EDGE-only Curve 8520 – aka the BlackBerry Gemini – isn’t going to impress in the smartphone playground when it comes to features, but that doesn’t stop it from being quietly competent when it comes to build and hand-feel.
It feels like we’ve been following the SmartQ 5 MID for some time now, though in reality the 4.3-inch touchscreen media player and internet device only showed on the radar back in February. SmartQ have obviously been hard at work though, as the first devices are hitting Hong Kong, hence this photo unboxing.
Update: Second unboxing photoset here.
Further details on the Moses SmartQ 5 MID have emerged, together with live photos. The 4.3-inch WVGA touchscreen mobile internet device – first spotted back in February - is now known to have a 667MHz ARM11 processor, 1GB of internal storage (of which 256MB is available to the user) and an SD slot for cards up to 32GB in size. The SmartQ 5 is also compatible with EDGE USB modems, thanks to USB-host connectivity.
Further details of Zer01 Mobile’s VoIP service have emerged, suggesting that the carrier will not only use AT&T’s network, as first reported, but has interconnect agreements with several US carriers. The $69.99 monthly fee gets unlimited calling in the US and unlimited data; a further $10 per month adds unlimited international calls to 40 destinations.
Samsung have launched their latest rugged cellphone, the Samsung Xplorer B2100. Built to withstand submersion, dust, extremes of temperature and shocks, the Xplorer meets military specification MIL-STD-810F; since you’ll want to use it as a phone, too, it’s quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) though not 3G.
A touchscreen quadband GSM cellphone from Philips has leaked, marking a change in design direction for the company. The Philips Xenium X810 has a 240 x 400 TFT touchscreen and what looks to be a panel of touch-sensitive buttons underneath, together with a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash.
A leaked image of the BlackBerry Gemini 8325 has emerged, together with specs, and it’s not exactly setting our hearts aflame. The unannounced RIM smartphone is believed to be the successor to the BlackBerry Curve, and seemingly takes the DNA of the 8300 and 8900 with the turgid connectivity of quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE.
The urgency to bring out third-party accessories just as soon as a product launches has bitten Apple a few times over the past year or so, with iPods and the iPhone 3G all being tipped via leaked case details. Now we’re supposedly seeing the form factor of the upcoming iPhone nano, courtesy of a silicone skin case from XSKN.
Well, they may not have quite said it like that, but, they did say that they’ve taken a look at the iPhone SDK and they believe that they can use just the SDK to get Flash on the iPhone. Sure they’d much rather work directly with Apple on this matter and make sure Flash gets fully integrated, but they’ve more or less said that one way or the other, Flash will be built for the iPhone.
SlashGear Japan
