Phones - SlashGear

‘Phones’ Stories

Rumor: Unlocked French iPhones may not actually be unlocked

James Allan Brady, Dec 14th 2007 Discuss [2]

So due to laws in France, Apple couldn’t sell only a locked iPhone over there, they had to offer an unlocked version, granted at a noticeably higher price, but they still had to offer it. Well, now it’s looking like they weren’t truly unlocked devices, they were unlocked to the other carriers in France, but that’s it. Read The Full Story

Sony Ericsson Self Cleaning Displays

James Allan Brady, Dec 13th 2007 Discuss [1]

I am sure that I am not the only one to notice that the better the screens get on mobile devices, the more annoying the fingerprints get. My old Moto V551, I could spit on it and rub it in dirt and still see well enough to use it, not literally, but close, my iPod Touch, a single fingerprint angers me. Read The Full Story

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Nokia N95 8GB in Vincent’s Hands

James Allan Brady, Dec 12th 2007 Discuss [10]

Vincent Nguyen, our benevolent dictator (on the rare occasion he feels benevolent) has gotten his grubby mittens on a Nokia N95 8GB. Sadly he hasn’t had time to review it yet, but here are some images of the device up close and personal.

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PSP Phone concept, I think I like this one the best

James Allan Brady, Dec 10th 2007 Discuss [3]

So gamers realize that when cellphone manufacturers try and combine gaming and cell-phones they usually screw it up, so in an effort to push Sony-Ericsson in the right direction, some guy came up with this design for the PSP phone. It maintains the full functionality of the PSP but adds the phone functionality in. It looks like it’s a dual slider that slides up for the phone keypad or at an angle for the PSP controls. Sure, you might lose the UMD slot with this design, but it’s on its way out already, so by the time this phone would be released, you should be good to go. The best part is that instead of trying to build a gaming platform onto some mediocre mobile devices, you’d be taking an already fairly well-developed gaming platform and try and build a phone into it, I have a feeling that it would work a lot better this way. Also, this guy apparently things that a PSP phone would be deservant of a 3.2MP cam on the back and hopefully 3rd or 4th generation WWAN access on top of the WiFi the PSP already has. Sadly, this is just a concept, and not even one from Sony or Sony-Ericsson, but it’s a great one, so it probably won’t get used. Sony Ericsson PSP phone should be the dual-sliding device! [via intomobile]

Sharp drops two new phones in Japan, 820SH and 821SH

James Allan Brady, Dec 5th 2007 Discuss [1]

Other than the 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, and 2MP cam there isn’t much interesting about this pair of devices other than their MBP-like appeal. The 821SH is the silver-ish looking one, and would probably match your MacBook Pro perfectly. Read The Full Story

Belkin and Kodak work together for Bluetooth adapter/software combo

Tamara Lapiers, Dec 5th 2007 Discuss [0]

This combo will hijack your pictures from your mobile phone whenever you walk within range. It doesn’t really hijack them, but it will copy them to your PC for you, no physical connection with your phone required. Read The Full Story

InterGrafx 3D Virtual Secretary on your phone

James Allan Brady, Dec 5th 2007 Discuss [2]

So it can wake you up, schedule your appointments, and other clerical tasks. It cant answer your phones, and although it might look attractive to you (sick freak) you can’t have an affair with it, so stick to the real thing, if not for adultery, do it so you don’t have to answer your phone so often. Read The Full Story

Today France gets the iPhone, officially

James Allan Brady, Nov 28th 2007 Discuss [0]

Today, in the evening, in France, 12 different stores will be selling the iPhone on Orange’s behalf, actually I am pretty sure they are all Orange stores, but you get the idea. The pompous Didier Lombard thinks that he can sell 100k iPhones in France alone by the end of the year. France is the second country to get an Apple unlocked iPhone, once again, because the law says they have to offer it. The unlocked handset is about $965.32 in France, and about $1485.91 in Germany (the first country to get an unlocked iPhone. The locked phones will be selling for about $593, a considerable premium over what they are selling for here. Read The Full Story

Nokia adding RFID to phones in the UK

James Allan Brady, Nov 27th 2007 Discuss [0]

In a trial with O2, London Underground, and Nokia, they are offering up a few phones with built in RFID tags to be used with payment systems. Its not a new idea, it was just decided a while ago that it was a rather bad one. So what makes Nokia think they can do something different enough to make it work better? Personally I don’t think they can, I am all about making the contents of my pocket fewer and fewer and simplifying the payment process, but I am also totally against RFID except for the tracking of cargo, items in a business, applications where tracking people, and attaching the tech to money are not combined because I’ve read about the extreme lack of security regarding RFID. Read The Full Story

Japanese Genius Idea Number 235463423: recycle cell phones into pocket sized computers

James Allan Brady, Nov 23rd 2007 Discuss [0]

So the engineers at Hokuto System are the ones behind this, but basically they are recycling cell phone components and using a custom made board to make pocket sized computers. It looks like they are stealing the screen, RAM/ROM chips, processor, audio chips and interfaces, and CMOS sensors from the phones and putting them on a chip board. The program appears to be called DVIEW and will begin selling these micro computers before the end of the year. Here’s the catch, they won’t be selling them to the public, they will be selling them to stores to us as POS displays and such. Read The Full Story

T-Mobile outsmarts Vodafone

James Allan Brady, Nov 21st 2007 Discuss [1]

So, Vodafone sued T-Mobile in Germany and got an injunction put in place that said T-Mobile couldn’t have exclusivity on the iPhone in Germany. Not the smartest move forcing Apple to get creative when you yourself are vying for exclusivity of future Apple devices, but that’s not the point. So, instead of T-Mobile facilitating Apple making a contract with Vodafone, T-Mobile pulls a French move and just starts selling an unlocked iPhone for an extremely high pricepoint of 999 Euro. BAM! No longer exclusive, and Vodafone still gets screwed, that’s how I like to see things happen. Read The Full Story

Samsung SGH-a747 SLM Napster Phone

James Allan Brady, Nov 21st 2007 Discuss [0]

So we already mentioned this, but we have something new, more specs, and a whole lot more pics. In fact if I recollect right, we didn’t have a single pic of the actual handset last time. It has Bluetooth 2.0, Quad-Band GSM, Dual-Band UMTS, and a talk time of about 3 hours. There is the 2MP cam that has up to a 4x digital zoom, and other than all the video and music services that come with it, it has Java, and SMS, MMS, AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! instant messengers built in. Read The Full Story