Samsung have unveiled their new SGH-X820, proudly labelling it the ‘world’s thinnest phone’.
Making Motorola’s SLVR look like a pie-gorging slab o’lard, the SGH-X820 model is a wafer-thin 6.9 millimeters thick, yet still manages to fit in a full set of features – and look great.
Weighing just 66 grams, the SGH-X820 has a media player supporting MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA music files, with 80MB of onboard storage.
Apparently using Victorian corset techniques, Samsung’s designers have also managed to wedge in a 1.9″, 176×220 pixel display (262k colours), Bluetooth connectivity, USB support, a TV-out jack and a 2 megapixel camera that records video into its 113mm x 50mm (4.4″ x 2″) dimensions.
The display can also be conveniently viewed in landscape mode for some functions.
The super-slim device supports GPRS/EDGE data on 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz GSM bands and, unlike Motorola’s futuristic designs, comes in a traditional format with individual keys.
“The Samsung ‘ultra-slim phone’ has set a record in the mobile handset history by breaking the wall of 7-millimeter thickness for the first time in the world,” the company purred.
Samsung expects to release the SGH-X820 in the Russian market next month, with us poor punters in Europe having to wait.
Another in the “hacks” range of O’Reilly books, where hacking is doing interesting things with something, rather than the unfortunate media convention of breaking into computers (which has some relevence as you’re getting into the guts of the BlackBerry in ways RIM, the manufacturer, may not have expected and/or indeed intended). 
The book also gives a good insight into programming the Blackberry and describes the tools that RIM provide and how to go about using them (and what other things you need to do). RIM originally made the BlackBerry for corporates and the last thing they wanted was nasty virii and programs infecting them, so when a program tries to access some of the BlackBerry’s inner workings the BlackBerry actually checks that the program is valid and should be doing that. RIM force programmers to “sign” programs and there’s info on how to go through that process. 
Pantech Group, South Korea’s second biggest mobile phone company, has announced that it’ll be wowing the crowds with the new PG-2800 GSM ‘finger writing recognition phone’ at the Moscow SVIAZ Expo Comm trade show this week. 
The company is also aiming high worldwide, with expectations to shift 27 million unit sales globally in 2006. 
She’s got a mission to eliminate mobile phone roaming rip-off charges. She’s Commissioner Viviane Redding of the EC, and today, Vodafone took PR action to keep itself out of her sights, by promising to “cut roaming by 40%” by this time next year. 
But like many of the giants, Vodafone is suffering from the cost of providing phones. All the European operators, traditionally, subsidise handsets; they give them away, or sell them for a fraction of their cost, in the expectation of making substantially more out of phone call charges – and it works. 
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather. 
Smartphone: Treo 650
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map
Nordic browser kings Opera Software have released Opera Mini 2.0, a spanking new version of their tiny Web browser that runs on almost all mobile phones. 
Also new for version two is a speed dial widget, which lets surfers call up bookmarks by assigning shortcut key combinations. 
With Opera Mini supporting mobile commerce via SMS, users can directly buy ringtones, games and other content for delivery as an SMS. 
Pulling out its big book of alliteration, Samsung have declared their new D520 phone to be full of “Stylish Simplicity and Stunning Sophistication.” 
The SGH-D520 should be appearing on the shelves around Europe any time now. 
PayPal has announced that it’s wading into the world of mobile payments with the announcement of a new texting service, PayPal Mobile. 
“PayPal already has more than 100 million accounts worldwide, and our customers have already entrusted their personal and financial information to PayPal. Now, making payments is as easy as sending a text message anytime, from anywhere for the millions of customers that prefer to use PayPal,” he continued, with a worrying amount of enthusiasm. 
An automated system reads the received text and then calls the PayPal user back and prompts them to enter their PIN. 
It’s with absolutely no surprise that news reaches us that the number of text (SMS) messages has reached a record high. 
So you’ve shelled out for your new smartphone/PDA and you’re ready to watch your productivity soar as you strut around with an office in your pocket. 
Like most annoyingly compelling games, Bejeweled is dead simple to play and takes seconds to learn. 
In the original Bejeweled (available on Palm, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile) there’s an additional timed mode to add a frantic air to the gameplay, while its sequel, Bejeweled2 (available on Palm and Pocket PC), ramps up the bells and whistles offering four play modes, bonus play modes, explosive Power Gems, Hyper Cubes and Time Bombs and arcade-style noisy effects (which can be turned off). 
You can download trial versions of both games from