Cellular

Cellular related stories

O2 XDA Stealth PDA Phone Coming Soon
Slated for an October release is the swish O2 Xda Stealth PDA phone, clad in ‘ebony black’ and featuring a slide-up numerical keypad.
Billed as a “fusion of functionality and versatility,” the tri-band GMS900/1800/1900 phone (but no 3G) is powered by an Intel Xscale PXA 272 Processor running at 416 MHz with a healthy 192 MB Flash ROM and 64MB RAM onboard.
The front panel is dominated by a 2.4 inch touch screen supporting a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and 65,000 colours.
There’s a built in 2 mega pixel camera for your snapping pleasure and support for the usual audio formats like MP3,WMA and WAV with MIDI for those plinky-plonky ring tones.
Running on the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, the Stealth comes preloaded with Microsoft Office Suite for Mobile devices, and offers built in 802.11b and 802.11g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 1.2 and USB1.1 for synchronisation.
A SD card slot takes care of expansion needs, while the 1300 mAh Lithium Ion battery provides a claimed 150 hours of talktime and 4.5 hours of standby time.
Unlike its Blackberry and Palm Treo competitors, there’s no proper QWERTY keyboard, so heavy users will either have to make do with the keypad or get mighty acquainted with the stylus.
The slider-tastic Stealth measures up at a bijou 53 x 110 x 22.5 mm, and weighs just 140g.
C|Net video preview
[Via: New Launches]
21 September, 2006
SMS m300 “World’s First Truly Mobile GSM Watch Phone”
Dick Tracy had one and when I was a kid I would have swapped my entire collection of 2000AD comics for one, but users down under in Oz will soon be able to start talking into their wrist watches and not face arrest on psychiatric charges.
Designed by SMS Developments Ltd in Australia, the m300 is claimed to be the world’s first “truly mobile GSM watch phone” with their Flash-tastic website confirming a release date of Dec 1st 2006 (excuse us while we decline to hold our breath on that one).
Just like a R’n’B star talking about his music, the makers are promising to take mobile communications “to a whole new level,” with the watch offering 70 hours standby time, full SMS functionality, Bluetooth compatibility and USB connectivity for software/ringtone uploads.
There’s also a 99 number memory storage, 40 embedded real tones and what they’re describing as a “sleek sophisticated design” (we beg to differ here – it looks more like the kind of cheapo watch you might win from those annoying funfair ‘grab’ machines – you know, the ones that always drop your prize in the last bleedin’ second).
Anyway, back to the M300, the specs say that it offers GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHZ connectivity, Bluetooth (with bluetooth headset for voice call only), a teensy-weensy 65K OLED (0.9″) display and “Speaker Phone Text base UI,” whatever that is.
In fairness, compared to some of the arm-dragging slabs of metal that have been served up as ‘watch-sized’ in the past, this actually is more or less the right size, albeit a slightly chunky affair at 43 x 56 x 14.8 mm.
The phone should work in the USA, Europe and Asia although whether it actually makes it out of Australia is anyone’s guess.
I guess the bit that the designers forgot about is that talking into a watch is going to make you look distinctly odd and that watch sales have been steadily declining as users are preferring to use the time displays on their phones, PDAs and MP3 players…
Oh, and as for the ‘world’s first’ claim, The Inquirer has already pointed out that Samsung announced such a phone at the CeBIT show, Hanover, some years ago.
SMS Developments
19 September, 2006
Vodafone Treo 750v UK Release Date Nears
Palm have revealed details about their eagerly awaited Treo 750v, which will be made available on the Vodafone network in the UK.
The smartphone will come with quadband support for GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G/UMTS plus Bluetooth 1.2, but there’s no sign of HSDPA onboard.
(In case you’re not up to speed with the latest acronyms, HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access – also referred to as 3.5G – and provides higher data transfer speeds; up to 14.4 Mbit/s per cell downlink and 2 Mbit/s per cell uplink.)
This new release will be the first of the Treo smartphones to not have a thumping great trademark antennae sticking out of the top, with the body being noticeably slimmer too.
In line with Palm’s weird aversion to all things Wi-Fi in their Treos, hotspot lovers will have to invest in a separate Wi-Fi SDIO card.
As with the previous 700p both enjoy 320 x 320 pixel displays).
Memory has been boosted to 128MB plus 60MB user flash memory, with the device sharing the same 1.3 megapixel digital camera and the excellent full QWERTY keyboard with 5-way navigator of its predecessors.
Users can pre-order the Treo 750v from Vodafone’s UK small business online shop (“From Free to £127.66”), with the full product launch scheduled for 27th September 2006.
Palm Treo 750w
Palm Treo 750w UK page
Vodafone Treo
HSDPA explained
14 September, 2006
Roadbank HTMS 18800 DMB Navigator
Hyundai Telematic Korea have announced their way-posh Roadbank HTMS 18800 DMB navigator, an ultra slim, in-car navigation system with a hefty 7 inch touch screen.
Although only available in Korea (bah!), this little puppy should hopefully be paving the way for a new generation of multimedia navigation gadgets that will eventually get into the hot little paws of us technology starved Euro-types.
Back to the HTMS 18800, the unit comes with an electronic map which offers a realistic view of the roads and buildings as you cruise by, with an embedded Sirf III GPS module offering top notch GPS reception rate.
As well as offering navigation tools, the Roadbank comes stuffed with multimedia widgets, doubling up as a high end media console with support for movie playback formats like WMV9, MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, Xvi and H.264. It can also display digital photos too.
There’s a music player in there as well offering MP3 support, and if all that wasn’t enough, the thing can play live TV using T-DMB.
The Roadbank HTMS 18800 DMB runs on Windows CE 5.0 and comes with 64 MB of Nand Flash with a SD card slot providing memory expansion options.
As we said, it’s a Korea-only release, so we’ll have make do with an iPod, a compass and some Ordnance Survey maps in the meantime. Aving.net
13 September, 2006
News Corp Buy 51% Of Jamba For $187m!
News Corp has reportedly shelled out $187.5m to buy 51% in Jamba (Jamster in the US), the mobile phone ringtone company who came to prominence with the Crazy Frog ringtone.
What!, was the cry around the Digital-Lifestyles offfices. How much …. and for what?
Many had the same reaction when Murdoch bought MySpace for $580m a year ago. These same people had to quickly readjust their view as member accounts rose to 100m and they signed a deal with Google that brought in $900m.
Here’s a few of our theories as to why they might have splashed so much cash on this.
News Corp are very gun-ho about content to mobile … well actually all platforms now. It may be that they hoping to buy large amounts of Jamba’s already-paying customers. We saw Jamba at IFA in Berlin (where they’re based) and the stand was indeed filled with eager young-things, trying to look cool, in their self concious way – ideal clients for content.
The WSJ is reporting initial offerings are expected to be ringtones, wallpaper and short clips from the popular Fox animated series The Simpsons.
With this purchase, you could assume that News Corp want to move into this space very quickly, as building an infrastructure to deliver content to mobiles isn’t exactly beyond the realms of achievability. Jamba obviously have a lot of expertise in delivering content, primarily ringtones, to mobile phones.
Verisign bought Jamba for $266m in 2004 at the height of the Crazy Frog promotion. We thought at the time it was a very strange fit for a company that provides services.
Jamba
12 September, 2006
Enfora 802.11 Wi-Fi Sled For Palm Treo 650s Review (75%)
Although we’re not alone in thinking that the Palm Treo is the best smartphone around, the device suffers from one tragic omission; Wi-Fi.
For reasons best known to Palm, the promised drivers for their 802.11 Wi-Fi SD card never materialised, leaving Treo 650 users looking like chumps when the Wi-Fi gang were in town.
Enfora to the rescue
Seeing a sizeable hole in the market, Texas tech company Enfora released a WiFi Adapter for the Treo, unusually shaped in a ‘sled’ design, bolting on to the back of the Treo rather than using the SD card slot.
This design has obvious advantages and disadvantages; the advantage is that the sled offers its own power supply, giving users a considerably enhanced battery life compared to handheld-powered Wi-Fi cards; the disadvantage is that the thing adds bulk to the phone.
Getting started
Tearing open the box with gay abandon, we found the adapter (smaller than we imagined), an AC adapter that conveniently offers four different international plugs, an installation CD and the flimsiest instructions we’ve seen for some time – just a tiny scrap of paper.
There’s also a custom battery cover for the Treo which has two slotted holes for attaching the phone to the sled. Aesthetes may be offended to note that it’s a different shade of silver to the Treo.
The unit must be charged for two hours before use, with a small amber LED blinking while charging. This turns to solid green when the Treo is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
Installing the drivers
Installing the drivers via Windows XP was easy enough, with an automated setup program on the CD transferring the required WiFiMgr.prc driver file to the Palm.
Mac users will have to manually install the driver which is simple enough.
Getting connected
It has to be said that getting the WiFi Sled on to your Treo is a bit of a palaver, needing a dexterity akin to the Vulcan death grip.
Once you’ve changed the battery cover you have to pull the button on the sled, give the Treo an almighty shove downwards and then click the phone back into place.
The first few times we tried this, it took so much effort to pull the phone in and out of the sled we began to fear we’d end up breaking the thing.
In the end, we just took the cover off and fitted the Treo bareback, if you, err, get our drift.
Once wedged into the sled, we turned on the unit, clicked on the Wi-Fi icon on the Treo and ran the Enfora application to look for available wireless base stations (WBS).
As soon as you locate your network, you have to select ‘add’ to create a network profile and then input IP information and WEP passwords (if needed) and then hit ‘connect’ and you’re online.
Although this is fine if you know what network you’re looking for, the software for ‘sniffing’ connections is rather woefully Spartan, with no indications whether located networks are open or encrypted.
We did write to Enfora (who have excellent customer support by the way) and they said that they couldn’t justify writing a brand new Wi-Fi sniffer application for what is basically a niche product.
Using the Enfora Wi-Fi Sled
Although the Wi-Fi Sled is nowhere near as big as we thought, you’d still feel a right berk making calls with it attached, so a headset is a must (see our BoxWave Dual Handsfree Stereo Adapter review).
Happily, the Enfora has been designed so that you can still use the audio port on the Treo and there’s a microphone on the front of the unit so you can receive calls while surfing the web too.
Conveniently, the Wi-Fi Sled’s AC adapter will also charge the Treo when it’s in situ, so you won’t need to drag around two adapters on your travels.
Conclusion
It has to be said that although it feels a bit of a bodge, it actually works very well and for users who need to combine the slick functionality of a Treo 650 with the speed of a broadband Wi-Fi connection, the Enfora WiFi Sled is well worth the money (approx £106/$170).
Once connected, we had no problems hurtling through our email and whizzing around Websites and although the pocket-filling girth didn’t thrill, the additional battery life meant that it may prove far more practical for road warriors away from base for lengthy periods.
One thing: it looks like Enfora may be cancelling UK shipments in the near future, so get your order in quick!
Features: 70% Build: 70% Value For Money: 75% Overall: 75%
Enfora
Enfora Online ordering (UK)
31 August, 2006
Mobile Phone Throwing World Championship
If you’ve ever suffered a flakey mobile phone that keeps on freezing, dropping calls or generally screwing up you may have felt a near-uncontrollable urge to lob the thing as far as you can throw it.
Although we’ve always managed to resist the temptation to send our phones skywards (only just in the case of the Sony Ericsson T610), some sporty wags have managed to turn the act of throwing mobile phones into an annual competition.
Held last weekend in Savonlinna, Finland, the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championship has been running since 2004 and offers four categories; Juniors, Original and Team Original and Freestyle.
The rules
In the first three categories, only a “traditional over the shoulder throw” is allowed, with one simple rule: the person or team who throws the phone the furthest wins.
However, the freestyle competition awards points for “style and aesthetics” with the overall appearance being “crucial,” with a competitor adding that three things were needed to be a long distance phone lobber; power, technical skills and a sense of humour.
Contestants were allowed to pick an old phone of their choice for the competition, with Finland’s Lassi Etelätalo managing to clinch the title with an impressive 89m throw,
Eija Laakso took first place in the woman’s category with a new world record throw of 50.83m
Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships
29 August, 2006
Egrips For Smartphones, iPods, PDAs And More
Are you the owner of a pair of super slippery hands that seem unable to keep a firm grip on your mobile or PDA?
Or are you one of those people who like to multitask when you’re running around the office but have found the shiny surface of your phone a little too slippery on occasion – sometimes with disastrous results? (we know of at least two people who have managed to drop their phones down toilets).
If this sounds like you, then you may be interested in investing in some Egrips Appliques.
We’re not sure what the Frenchy-sounding name is all about, but the company offers a range of protective stick-on covers for a wide selection of electronic devices such as cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, iPods, MP3 players, gaming devices etc.
Like many of the best ideas, it’s a simple one: simply stick on a pre-cut set of protective silicone grips on to your device and the thing should become much more ‘sticky’ and less likely to end up on the floor, under your brake pedal or floating in your karsey.
Made from a super thin material, the makers claim that the “specially formulated adhesive” won’t damage your precious gadget while the super-grippy material will prevent it from, “sliding around on dry surfaces, like car seats, centre consoles, counter tops, desktops, laptops and more.”
The grips are reasonably priced around the $10-$12 mark and are available from the egrips website.
21 August, 2006
More PE Takeover Talk At NTL
The much heralded NTL/Telewest merger, expected to be the saviour of the UK cable industry, has become the subject of another Private Equity takeover rumour and the likely winner, if it goes ahead, is Richard Branson.
A quick recap
Branson did a deal with NTL that saw Virgin mobile become part of a four-play (geddit?) proposition, allowing the operation to use the Virgin brand and in return received 10.6% of the company. The merger of the three companies has not yet bedded in, and customers across the country are still waiting for the promised improvements in the notoriously poor levels of customer support.
Flextech the programming arm of the company, which was up for sale at the time of the earlier merger (I hope you’re paying attention), is likely to again be offered up for acquisition to media companies. A great way for potential new investors to make a chuck of their cash back.
Market reaction
The market has viewed the possible takeover positively, as it considered the cable company is still under valued following its 20% share price drop in the last three months. More recently shares in the company, quoted in the US, gained around 8% last week, on the possible fresh takeover.
What would the impact be?
If a takeover goes ahead, then the focus will be on installing a strong management team to leverage the offering against well established competition from BT and the newer entrants to the market, like Tiscali whose purchase of Homechoice has put them in the triple-play space, and Sky who are rolling out a broadband proposition under their own well known brand.
21 August, 2006
Greenphone Announced by Trolltech
Trolltech may not be well known, but they make a software product called Qt (pronounced “cutie”) which is used by many. It’s a package that allows developers to write code that works across several platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS X) so only one set of API’s (Applications Programming Interfaces) need to be learnt.
Qt is used both commercially and in the open source community (it’s the basis for the Linux KDE windowing environment). Commercially there are several well known programs using it, including Skype and various packages from Google and Adobe.
Qt has been around for quite a while and more recently introduced Qtopia a complete Linux development environment, using Qt as a basis for its user interface.
Qtopia comes in several editions including a phone edition which is used by several vendors including Motorola. It uses Embedded Linux (version 2.4) and then Qtopia sits on top, offering various standard interfaces (including the user interface and standard Qtopia applications like calendaring, contacts, etc).
Qt and Qtopia are designed to make writing applications easy, however it’s still a relatively complicated task. Supporting lots of flavours of hardware further complicates things.
Trolltech Greenphone
In addition to Qt and Qtopia, Trolltech have come out with a mobile development device, known as the Greephone. Unsuprisingly it has a green casing, just so you don’t forget. The phone only supports GSM/GPRS.
The Greenphone comes with Qtopia Phone Edition 4.1.4 and the Linux kernel 2.4.19.
The hardware consists of a touch-screen and keypad UI QVGA LCD colour screen, Intel XScale 312 MHz PXA270, 64MB RAM & 128MB Flash, Mini-SD card slot, Broadcom BCM2121 GSM/GPRS baseband processor, Bluetooth and Mini-USB port.
Though it’s not designed to be used in production, it is designed to allow developers to rapidly prototype applications that can then be moved on to a real phone before expensive prototypes are made.
Applications, new kernels and versions of Qt and Qtopia can be loaded on to the Greenphone through the mini USB connection.
The Greenphone comes with a complete Qtopia SDK (software development kit) which provides a complete environment for developing and modifying application software for Qtopia Phone Edition. It can produce packages that run on the Greenphone itself or run through the virtual phone included with the SDK.
There are already over 4 million Linux phones utilising Trolltech’s software, this just allows manufacturers to develop Linux applications and get them to market more rapidly.
The mobile phone market is already a crowded space with Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and Symbian dominating the market. Maybe this will give Linux the mobile boost it needs to push it into the mainstream.
17 August, 2006