Nokia’s latest touchscreen XpressMusic handset has shown up for preorder on the company’s US site. The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic slots neatly in beneath the 5800, and lack of 3G aside has met with positive reviews from early users, not least because of its nifty new homescreen (a demo video of which you can see after the cut); preorder customers also get a free Nokia MD-8 Bluetooth speakerset.
Windows Mobile has been around for a long time. It started life in 1996 as Windows CE (which some say stood for Consumer Electronics and Microsoft insisted was an acronym for nothing) with the first clamshell device coming from Casio, called the Cassiopeia. Over time, it’s evolved into a stable platform, with both enterprise and consumer appeal and devices from multiple vendors available for carriers around the world. Despite selling 20 million devices last year, there’s still a lot of negative buzz about the platform. Bloggers, analysts and journalists have all called the platform’s future into question (while still calling for a mythical Microsoft-created phone) and continue to raise the question of platform viability. I think the latest version of Windows Mobile, 6.5 addresses many of those issues along with strong support from OEMs who are still committed to the platform and will help drive business adoption further over the next 18 months.
Orange UK have announced pricing for the LG GD910 touchscreen watch phone, the wrist-worn handset that went on sale in France earlier this month. The handmade device will be priced at £500 ($826) and only available for a limited period; units will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
Updated with video demo after the cut
Samsung and T-Mobile USA have officially released the Gravity 2, their latest budget slider. First announced last month along with the Samsung Comeback, the Gravity 2 has both a QWERTY keyboard and a numeric keypad, and will retail – initially at least – for $29.99 with a two-year agreement and following a $50 mail-in rebate (boo hiss!)
Hungering for more LG BL40 photos? Can’t get enough of that 4.0-inch 800 x 345 “cinema-like” touchscreen? The company’s official blog have – perhaps unsurprisingly – managed to get their hands on the upcoming featurephone, and have put together a gallery of not only live images but a couple of shots of the BL40 slotting neatly into “the smallest handbag” the photographer owns.
We’re still waiting for LG’s Q3 2009 launch of the BL40 “Chocolate” phone, so until then we’ll have to make do with stolen time and sneaky glimpses of the elongated touchscreen featurephone. Dan from Mobiles dropped us a line to let us know that they had just such a video, showing the BL40’s S-Class UI and navigating through the various multimedia features.
Video after the cut
There are quite a few companies out there who will sell you a ruggedized laptop, cellphone or digital camera, but they’ll also help themselves to a healthy amount from your wallet in return. The gang at Popular Mechanics decided to see if – with only the sort of typical supplies you could find at Home Depot and Staples – they could make their own versions for a whole lot less money. That, of course, provided the ideal opportunity to give one of Dell’s Inspiron 1545 notebooks a good kicking.
Modu’s modular-jacket cellphone may already be on sale in Israel, but don’t expect to see it land in the US or the UK any time soon; according to the company, “the device just isn’t good enough for demanding Brits and Americans who like to surf the internet and stay connected.” CEO Dov Moran followed up that slice of honesty (or was it a snub against the other locations the first-gen Modu will see a release in?) with the news that the Modu 2 will arrive in 2010 offering both a touchscreen and a full QWERTY jacket.
We’ve never particularly hidden our apathy toward Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, nor our feeling that it’s not quite as usable in its standard form as rival systems from HTC and others. However all that could change now that Samsung have released the Mobile Widget SDK for TouchWiz, allowing developers to create their own desktop gadgets for not only the Windows Mobile version of the UI but the company’s own proprietary OS.
In doing so, in one fell sweep Samsung have enabled application compatibility across their range. That’s no small matter, given the number of devices Samsung release – not to mention the countries those handsets are launched in – with TouchWiz giving developers a single platform to code for rather than having to deal with Samsung’s various WinMo, S60 and proprietary OSes.
While endearingly janky devices like the Nokla E97 aren’t usually to be found on Western shelves, that could change thanks to a key High Court ruling in the UK. The case had been brought by Nokia, who alleged that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in the UK had acted unfairly when allowing a shipment of counterfeit goods bearing Nokia’s trademarks free passage through the country after discovering they were not intended for sale there.
SlashGear Japan
