Smartphones - SlashGear

Posts Tagged ‘smartphones’

Should Nokia Abandon Symbian S60 for Maemo Linux?

By Avi Greengart on Friday, Nov 27th 2009 8 Comments

Nokia has a problem: it is both the largest handset vendor in the world, by a significant margin, and the largest smartphone vendor in the world – again, by a significant margin. Yet it has never managed to crack the U.S. smartphone market, and it has begun losing market share even in its European strongholds, primarily to Apple, though RIM, Samsung, and HTC are also threats. Nokia admits that it was caught sleeping while Apple first redefined the mobile user experience with the iPhone, and then again when Apple reenergized app development with the App Store. Nokia’s initial response has been lackluster: adapting its existing Symbian S60 OS to support touch, applying that to a few phones (the 5800 and the N97), and stumbling in its initial launch of the Ovi Store.

nokia n900 hands on slashgear 33 540x414

Continued »

8-10 Acer smartphones in 2010: “more balanced” between Android and WinMo

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 27th 2009 No Comments

We were less than enamoured by Acer’s tubby little Liquid A1 smartphone when we had a brief play earlier in the month, but if the touchscreen chunkster has left you similarly underwhelmed, fear not. According to Aymar de Lencquesaing, head of Acer’s phone unit, the company is planning 8 to 10 new smartphones for 2010, and they expect the balance between Android and Windows Mobile in the new range to be “much more balanced”.

Acer Liquid A1 Android smartphone 0 487x500

Continued »

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 gets video playtime with HD2, Omnia II, iPhone 3GS

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 27th 2009 No Comments

There’s no real new technical data in this latest video of Sony Ericsson’s unreleased XPERIA X10, but it does give us a chance to see the Android smartphone cavorting with HTC’s HD2, Samsung’s Omnia II and that perennial favorite, the iPhone 3GS. Size-wise, if you thought the HD2 was too big then you should probably cancel your XPERIA X10 preorder, as the two look pretty darn similar; in fact, as the video after the cut shows, the X10 is actually a little chubbier than HTC’s WinMo finest.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 HTC HD2 540x361

Video demo after the cut

Continued »

Nokia X6 on sale today packing Comes With Music for €450

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 27th 2009 No Comments

Love music, love Nokia, love capacitive touchscreens and live in Europe, Eurasia, the Middle-East or Africa? Three ticks and we reckon you should head down to your nearest Nokia dealer, as the Nokia X6 has gone on sale today. The S60-based 3.2-inch touchscreen handset puts music front and center, with Comes With Music providing unlimited track downloads and 32GB of onboard storage.

Continued »

Motorola MILESTONE Expansys preorder confirms December 7th ship date

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 27th 2009 No Comments

It looks like the tipped release date for the Motorola MILESTONE in the UK really is December 7th, as Expansys are advertising that the European version of the Verizon DROID will arrive in eight working days from now. That tallies with the preorder listing spotted earlier this week, though the Expansys price is £10 higher at £449.99 ($743).

Motorola MILESTONE

Continued »

Nokia N900 in-store sales delayed in UK

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 25th 2009 No Comments

Looks like Nokia was a victim of its own success. Not only has the N900 taken far longer to reach the market than initially expected, strong pre-order sales have meant the company has been forced to push back its in-store release of the Maemo 5 smartphone until December 4th. The Finnish company told NokNok that demand has basically outstripped supply.

Continued »

BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) appears on eBay?

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 25th 2009 No Comments

When we pondered out loud last Friday on when we might see the leaked BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) arrive on shelves, little did we know it would be quite so soon. Of course, this isn’t an official release from RIM, and stocks are severely limited: someone has supposedly gotten hold of an unlocked, unused Pearl 9100 and has put it up on eBay. What’s strange is that the seller doesn’t appear to have any photos of the handset itself.

blackberry pearl 9100 striker ebay 540x240

Continued »

Emblaze First ELSE struts new UI in video demo

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 25th 2009 1 Comment

emblaze first else 540x405 Still curious about the First ELSE smartphone and its nifty user-interface? Various videos of the handset in action have emerged, including a five minute UI demo from the ELSE’s launch in London this week. The handset is based on the Access Linux Platform 3.0, onto the open-source underpinnings of which designers Emblaze Mobile built the sPlay menu system, which is intended to be navigated via the right-hand thumb.

Rather than digging through numerous menus and pop-up boxes, sPlay aims to keep a consistent UI throughout the ELSE handset. We touched upon its more headline-grabbing functionality yesterday – the phone will record voice calls and store them along with records of when the call was made, and there are GPS-linked contextual reminders which flag up alerts whenever you’re near a preset position, for instance a shopping list while you’re near a supermarket – but Emblaze are planning an app store and building up to an SDK release for more functionality.

Video demos after the cut

Continued »

HTC HD2 to get official WinMo 7 update in 2010?

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 25th 2009 No Comments

Pinch of salt time, but msmobiles have heard from an unnamed source that HTC are planning to offer an official Windows Mobile 7 upgrade for the HTC HD2 as soon as Microsoft formally announce the new smartphone platform. The site is declining to reveal who their source is, and HTC have never confirmed that they plan to bring the HD2 up to speed with WM7, which is expected to arrive near the end of 2010.

Continued »

LG GW880 Android smartphone hits China Mobile

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 25th 2009 No Comments

LG’s second Android smartphone has been launched, the LG GW880, and Chinese Mobile buyers will be the first to get it. The keyboard-free GW880 is presumably the same device tipped earlier this month, and has a larger, 3.5-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen than the existing LG GW620. It also squeezes in Chinese-spec TD-SCDMA 3G connectivity, along with a 5-megapixel camera and GPS.

LG GW880 Android smartphone 2 540x363