In case London-based readers of SlashGear forgot, this morning saw carrier Orange put the expensive-but-attractive LG GD910 watch-phone on sale at their flagship store. Electricpig cashed in their premium bonds and stopped by to pick up one of the limited edition touchscreen handsets, promptly throwing up an unboxing gallery and some first impressions.
Continued »
Verizon are reportedly looking into ways in which subscribers without data plans can be prevented from loading up their handsets' web-browser, after recognising that it was too easy to do so accidentally and be charged $1.99 each time. According to carrier spokesperson Tom Pica, "it is obvious to [Verizon] that we need to fix this aspect of our service."
While we hate to admit it, a universal charger doesn’t seem to be something that’s going to happen any time soon for the mobile phone industry. And while we don’t expect anything from the other personal gadget manufacturers, it’s pretty ridiculous that we usually need to buy a new charger when we get a new phone. Making a standard seems to be the obvious thing to do, but hey, what do we know? Then again, if we had a universal rule of thumb for charging our phones, we wouldn’t get cool devices like this.
Well, August 23 has come and gone, and the Samsung Omnia 2 hasn’t graced the shelves at your local Verizon retailer, but Samsung doesn’t want you to freak out. In fact, they want you to take a look at a creepy silhouette of the Omnia II and rejoice in the fact that it’s coming soon. Whenever that means.
Today marks the day that OmniVision announced a sensor that could potentially make 1080p video capture a very real possibility in mobile devices. And not in ten years. The sensor is called the OV2710, and it can record the HD resolution at 30 frames per second, and it utilizes a 2-megapixel camera that matches the format. Keeping the megapixels low adds quite a few benefits, like lower expenses and getting better image quality in low lighting situations.
LG hasn’t always been known of releasing strange looking phones, but chalk it up to the BL40 to take that prize, and wear the belt proudly. There is something to gain from having an elongated screen, sure, like watching videos on your new-fangled device, but we can’t help but wonder about every day use. And it looks like the guys over at Mobile Review are feeling the same way, after having some time to play around with it and take a plethora of snapshots.
Nokia have announced their latest touchscreen handset, the Nokia 5230, a “competitively priced” media device. The 5230 lacks the WiFi and true GPS of its bigger touchscreen siblings, but has the same S60 5th Edition OS, A-GPS and Ovi apps integration; it also has the social networking widgets that have proved so popular.
Video demo after the cut
Nothing like a leaked carrier roadmap to whet the upgrade appetite, and going by the Boy Genius Reports’ slice of Verizon’s not-too-distant future there’ll be plenty of CDMA handsets on offer to those bored with their current phone. As well as a fair sized dollop of BlackBerry detail, there’s also a splash of Android and some feature-phones to be had too.
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.
JP
