Samsung has introduced a flexible color OLED-display at FPD International 2007 event in Yokohama. It features 4.3” diagonal, 480x272 pixels resolution, 200 cd/m2 frontal luminance, 1000:1 contrast. The manufacturer hasn’t disclosed the mass release date. To add, LG.Philips LCD and Sony introduced similar developments this May at Society for Information Display show (SID) 2007.

Sharp has unveiled an ultra thin LCD panel for portable devices. It measures mere 0.68-mm and has a 2.2” diagonal. Sharp calls the product the “industry’s thinnest” mobile display. It can be applied in mobile phones and digital cameras, which in their turn can get thinner. The company will exhibit its product at FPD International 2007 event in Yokohama. Unfortunately, there is no info on an actual release date.

• Diagonal – 2.2”
• Resolution – QVGA
• Thickness – 0.68 mm
• Contrast – 2000:1
• Viewing angle – 176 degrees
• Response time – 8 ms

HTC has reported it will launch HTC Shift Ultra mobile PC in 4Q 2007 together with the P6500 communicator and S730 smartphone. The device is powered by Windows Vista OS. It comes with a 7” touch-sensitive screen that slides out and tilts to a comfortable angle and a full QWERTY-keyboard. According to the company, HTC Shift has the optimal blend of portability and functionality. The SnapVUE always-on mode provides instant access to important info – e-mail, calendar events, SMS and contacts, even if the device is not switched on. The new product supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA networks and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connections. HTC shift will hit European stores in November.

• Direct Push Outlook e-mail
• Incredibly long battery life, up to 2 days in standby mode
• Always-on access to critical information with HTC SnapVUE
• Revolutionary small form factor providing portability without compromising mobility
• Powerful enough device to run Windows Vista

HTC has unveiled HTC S730 smartphone. This is a successor of HTC S710 (Vox): it comes with the number pad on the front and the QWERTY slide-out keyboard. The S730 is powered by Windows Mobile 6 Standard. It will be available in Europe in October.

• Networks - GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz and WCDMA/HSDPA 2100 MHz
• OS - Windows Mobile 6 Standard
• Chipset - Qualcomm MSM7200, 400 MHz
• Display – 2.4” 240x320 pixels
• 2-megapixel and frontal VGA- cameras
• 256 MB ROM and 64 MB RAM
• microSD-slot
• Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• HTC ExtUSB connector
• Li-Pol 1050 mAh battery
• Talk time - 210 minutes (WCDMA), 318 minutes (GSM)
• Standby time - 388 hours (WCDMA), 290 hours (GSM)
• Dimensions – 105.8x51x19.4 mm
• Weight - 150 g

HTC has officially announced HTC Touch Dual slider, an heir of HTC Touch communicator. It’s the second device with TouchFLO screen technology for finger and stylus input. I’d note that its slide-out keyboard contains 12 (traditional numeric) or 20 buttons (two letters for each button) depending on the region and operator’s preferences. The European release of HTC Touch Dual will take place later this month.

• Networks - GSM/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz, WCDMA/HSDPA 2100 MHz
• OS - Windows Mobile 6 Professional
• Chipset - Qualcomm MSM7200, 400 MHz
• Display – 2.6” touch sensitive QVGA
• 2-megapixel camera, frontal camera for video calls
• 256 MB ROM, 128 MB RAM
• microSD-slot
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• HTC ExtUSBTM connector
• 1100 mAh battery
• Talk time – up to 240 minutes (WCDMA) and up to 360 minutes (GSM)
• Standby time – up to 150 hours (WCDMA) and up to 250 hours (GSM)
• Dimensions – 107x55x15.8 mm
• Weight - 120 g

Asus has introduced a new ultra mobile PC – the R2E. Unlike it predecessor working on Celeron this UMPC is based on Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 (A110 800 MHz processor and 945GU chipset). The manufacturer says that the shift to the new platform will lower power consumption and increase productivity of the device.

Asus R2E comes with a 7” 800x480 pixels display, 1 GB DDR2, 80 GB HDD, Wi-Fi 802.11g and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR interface. In addition there are HSDPA-adapter, 1.3-megapixel web-camera and built-in GPS (optionally). The sales of Asus R2E will be launched next month at €1119.

The Engadget.com has recently posted pictures of an upcoming Nokia N94i, which is peculiar for running the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS, not Symbian. On the photos we see “winxp.jpg” indicator.

The Chinese source PCPOP posted live pics of an upcoming MOTOROKR U9 clamshell. It has been rumored much and now we’ve got a chance to see it.

According to the site the phone has the following specs:

On the whole, this list is confirmed by earlier rumors. However it’s not yet clear when the official announcement will take place. At PCPOP site you can have a look at other pictures of the phone.

Today Samsung Telecommunications America officially announced the availability of its SGH-T729 phone codenamed Blast from the American operator T-Mobile. Its main advantage is a QWERTY-keyboard, so the users get the opportunity to enter lots of messages (text and e-mail) with more comfort.

The short technical specs of Samsung Blast (SGH-T729):

• Cell networks: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, GPRS/EDGE Class 10
• Dimensions: 105.7x51.8x12.7 mm
• Weight: 79.4 g
• Display: 2.1” TFT, 176x220 pixels, 262K colors
• Camera: 1.3-megapixel with video capture
• Messages: SMS, MMS, E-Mail (IMAP4, POP3, SMTP), AOL, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN Live
• Connectivity: Bluetooth Class 2.0 + EDR, A2DP (Стерео Bluetooth), USB, SynchML DS/DM-FOTA, WAP browser
• Memory: 11 MB, microSD cards (up to 2 GB)
• Sound: 64-tones, MP3-player, speakerphone, voice dial, voice independent recognition
• Misc: alarm clock, calculator, calendar, notes, built-in and downloadable games

If you’re looking for a cell phone that is a bit more personalized this Toshiba fanfun 815T from the firm Softbank in Japan is just the phone. Especially for us girls, thre are a couple I could see some guys dealing with but frankly for the most part the styles are quite feminine.

It features HSDPA and FeliCa. It also has a 2.4 inch clear screen liquid crstal, face recognition and IC card lock security functions. The phone will be coming out August 8th.

At Nokia’s site you can come across a profile of a new phone marked 5610. According to the xml-file the device is based on S40 5th edition platform, equipped with a QVGA-display and Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP) interface.

Currently there are no details on the specs of Nokia 5610. Probably, they will be cleared up at an event in London set for August 29. There we expect a number of big announcements.

Krusell, the maker of carrying cases for portable electronics, has released its traditional top 10 of popular cell phones. The list is based on sales figures received over the month. This time Krusell has summed up the rating of July (the previous position in the brackets).

Top 10 July by Krusell:

1. (2) Nokia 6300
2. (1) Sony Ericsson K790i/K800i/K810i
3. (3) Nokia N95
4. (4) Nokia N73
5. (8) Sony Ericsson W880
6. (-) Blackberry RIM 8300 Curve
7. (5) Blackberry Pearl 8100C/G/V
8. (9) Nokia 6233/6234
9. (6) Sony Ericsson K750i/W700i/W800i
10. (-) Nokia 5500 Sport

We don’t see any serious moves in the top July: Nokia 6300 and Sony Ericsson K790i/K800i/K810i are still highly popular, they just exchanged their positions. The only newcomers to Top 10 July are Blackberry RIM 8300 Curve and Nokia 5500 Sport. Next month Krusell expects Sony Ericsson P1i smartphone to jump up in the rating.

The Glofiish X800, which is a communicator, has made it through the FCC chambers - the device was first showcased earlier this year, in March. Some time later it won the "Best Choice" award at Computex 2007. The Glofiish X800's release was slotted for Q2 2007.

Apple has announced that its online iTunes Store has made it to the 3 billion sold-downloaded tracks watermark. According to the company's data, today the media library of iTunes features over 5 mln tracks, 550 TV shows and 500 movies.

Apart from that, as Apple claims, iTunes has recently outrun Amazon and Target, moving up to the place of the third largest music retailer in the US. The company assumes that podcasts, integration with the iPod and the iPhone, as well as price cuts for album purchases and other amenities have made for such stellar sales.

More details have been reported on the slider-type thumbboard-equipped smartphone - the Samsung SGH-i620. This device already made several appearances in our news block - for those who missed them, this is the successor to the SGH-i600. And now another bit of information on it - its European release is scheduled for August. It is already available for preorder from Expansys (online store) for 339,95 pounds  (around 690 USD).

Here is the recently published spec sheet of the Samsung SGH-i620:

• GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz and UTMS/HSDPA connectivity
  
• Windows Mobile 6 Standard operating system
  
• 320x240-pixel display
• 64 Mb RAM, 128 Mb ROM
• microSD-slot
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0
• 2 Mpix camera
  
• Forward-facing VGA-camera
• Dimensions - 94,9x59,3x15,9 mm
• Weight - 105 g

The GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) survey, published on July 26th, 2007 confirms that 311 HSDPA-capable devices are launched in the market, which is over 6 times the number reported in a similar GSA survey one year ago (50 HSDPA devices, July 31, 2006). The number of suppliers increased from 16 to 71 in the same period.

The range of devices identified in GSA's survey addresses all market segments: 137 mobile phones 64 PC datacards (PC cards and embedded modules) 51 notebooks 32 Wireless Routers 23 USB modems 3 Personal Media Players with HSDPA-connectivity 1 camera with HSDPA-connectivity63 HSDPA devices support, or can be upgraded to, a high-speed downlink capability of 3.6 Mbps peak. 42 devices support, or can be upgraded to, a high-speed downlink capability of 7.2 Mbps peak. And at least 24 devices support, or can be upgraded for, HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), initially delivering 2.1 Mbps (peak) for the uplink direction.

Also, GSA recently reported that over half of all commercially launched HSDPA networks have also commercially launched GSM/EDGE for service continuity and the best user experience of mobile broadband services. Manufacturers are supporting this requirement, and the GSA survey confirms over 70% of HSDPA devices are multi-mode, supporting the GSM/EDGE functionality.

Motorola has put up images of six new entry-level phones on its official site, all coming from the W-series in candybar-type form-factor. Since there are no official technical specifications of these models given by Motorola, apart from the six photos, we can assume only one thing - three of them might well have bundled radio, while the other three handsets match their brothers in arms functionality-wise, yet have no radio module onboard..

Motorola W156:	Motorola W160:
Motorola W175:	Motorola W180:
Motorola W206:	Motorola W213:

The guys over at Ppcreviews have released some bits of information on the upcoming additions to HP's portfolio. The resource reports that new PDA, smartphones and communicators will run Windows Mobile 6, and supposedly arrive in the market in September. Earlier this year, in February, the company introduced its first 500-series offspring - HP iPAQ Voice Messenger smartphone.

As Ppcreviews puts it, the new range of HP-branded offerings includes:

Nevertheless these are only rumors, no official confirmation has followed as of today.

Future iPhones could utilize technology that converts text to voice messages and do so over voice channels instead of GSM. Such a system is described in a recently-published patent filed by Apple called "Multimedia data transfer for a personal communication device," which would essentially turn the mobile devices into walkie talkies for multimedia data. It could also serve to benefit users who are visually impaired by providing vocalized versions of the data being sent.

The patent specifies that the vocalization of the multimedia data wouldn't be done with the help of a backend server. Instead, it would be done locally on the sending device itself and then transmitted to the receiving device through a voice channel. This means that the devices could "talk" to each other without having to utilize cell minutes, like the walkie-talkie-like functionality (also known as "Push to Talk") already built into some cell phones. Once received, the data can then be converted into an audio signal, which the patent says would then be output through something like a speaker or headphones.

However, for those who prefer sending SMSes instead of making phone calls, a system that translates all text and multimedia data into voice output could be quite the turnoff. That's why Apple has specified that the receiving device can perform processing on the data once it's received, translating it back into a text or multimedia message if that's what the user specifies. The patent also says that the user can choose to receive "simple text messages" that would cause the full, vocalized message to be stored on the voicemail server with a simple notification of having received the data displayed on screen.

Apple notes that adding these options to cell phones or other communication devices would be "particularly well suited for people having visual problems or in those situations where viewing the data on a small display screen (typical of most personal communication devices) is problematic." Although cell phone screen readers already exist for the visually impaired, they are costly (several hundred dollars apiece) and the functionality doesn't come built into the devices themselves. Such a system would, at the very least, streamline the process of receiving text or multimedia data and translating it into vocalized form, and would (hopefully) cost significantly less.

However, the system would prove much more useful for that purpose if it could be utilized on all incoming data—not just data sent and received over the voice channel. Visually impaired people need to read their text messages that come through the cell network too, you know. And for the visually blessed among us, forget visual voicemail: how cool would it be to receive text message or e-mailed transcriptions of voicemail left on the server? Apple's patent opens up lots of possibilities for future iterations of the iPhone, but we're left to speculate on whether or not we will actually see them materialize.

Sometimes mobile phones compete on features, and sometimes on design. In the case of the Panasonic G70 and Siemens Xelibri 6, we have two phones designed strictly for the "girlie" market that are prepared to sacrifice technical features for looks and handbag-friendliness.

In strictly technical terms neither phone is too impressive. The screens are small on both phones, only the Panasonic G70 supports GPRS or WAP, there's no bluetooth or Java support for applications or games. But this largely misses the point - these are meant to be simple, functional handsets that cover the basics.

In pretty much all technical aspects, the Panasonic G70 is superior to the Xelibri 6. The Panasonic is tri-band (compared to the Xelibri 6 which is dual band), supports GPRS data and has a WAP browser (the Xelibri doesn't have this), it has an external display (the Xelibri has none) and the Panasonic's display has 50% more pixels.

However, the Xelibri 6 is pretty much identical to the G70 in terms of weight, and battery life is roughly comparable too. Although prices for the G70 aren't available yet, the SIM free model will probably be around the same as the Xelibri 6 at roughly �280/�180.

Where the Xelibri 6 scores is, arguably, in looks. The Xelibri seems to have a much more elegant design than the Panasonic which manages to look a little like a Christmas decoration. The Xelibri's twin mirrors, one standard and one magnifying are a much simpler way of doing it than the Panasonic's in-screen mirror which is limited the inbuilt 128x96 pixel display. The key point with the Xelibri 6 is that it has the ability to swap SIM cards on the fly, and this really is the whole point of the Xelibri.. it's not designed to be your main phone, but something that you can use if you're going out and want something small and smart.

This is the power of T9 ( predictive text ) dictionary used in mobile phones. Normally used for writing text messages, who can even think that an Italian author will be able to use it for writing a whole book and finally publishing it.

Italian author named Robert Bernocco wrote 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo or Fellow Travelers in English. The book took him 17 weeks to write using Nokia 6630 which was then downloaded to computer for further proof reading. The book is now available at lulu.com and you can buy it for a little less than $18.

Well !! I wonder how some people are capable of doing such thing. I remember once when i wrote a big mail on my mobile handset, my thumb started paining and also strained my eyes to a great extent. Have you ever tried doing such stuff on your mobile. It took 17 weeks for him to complete the book, which he might have completed in just few weeks , but then none of the blog must have posted about that . ( Like just another wordpress blog , the book would have been just another book written by hand or on computer ) . What so ever, the effort taken by the author are worth mentioning !! What do you think about this ??

And another reinforcement to Samsung's line-up, rumored to arrive either late in 2007 or early in 2008, is a smartphone - the Samsung i550, running S60 platform and coming with 3G connectivity, as well as HSDPA for faster data. But the best thing about the i550 is its GPS department.

Spec sheet of Samsung i550 (unofficial): Symbian S60 HSDPA support (3.6 Mbit/s) 2,6-inch display 128 Mb RAM, 150 Mb ROM micro SD-slot 3,2 Mpix camera with autofocus and flash FM-radio and 3,5mm audio jack GPS MicroUSB Web 2.0 Scroll-based navigation via Trackball Dedicated keys (internet, navigation, player) 1200 mAh battery Dimensions - 115x53x13,8 mm

One of those numerous Sony Ericsson fans has come up with a concept design of a mobile phone that the maker could launch some time in the future. Apparently, this hybrid represents his golden dream, a phone where Walkman and Cybershot come together, with touch-sensitive controls all around. As the "developer" claims, the design builds upon the Sony Ericsson W960i, and in fact this is a dual-face phone, with Walkman and CyberShot (inspired by the K850i) sit on opposite sides.

It is called the Sony Ericsson H1i, where "H" stands for Hybrid and comes equipped with a 3-inch widescreen touch-sensitive display capable of 480x270-pixel resolution and 7,2 Mpix camera with flash. And basically this handset has no buttons, at least in the form we have used to see them - all numbers and letters are displayed on the backlighted screen.

Ericsson and Texas Instruments are planning to join forces to create solutions for 3G-enabled mobile devices - the technology, the companies are developing, will combine small and power efficient 3G modens from Ericsson with high-performance OMAP applications processors from TI.

Ericsson and Texas Instruments stated that their solutions will enable handset manufacturers to differentiate their products through rich, easy-to-use and customizable user interfaces, and through a robust and flexible application architecture and eventually reduce complexity, investment and time-to-market. Handsets based on these solutions are expected to be available on the market in the second half of 2008.

The web has finally got the leak on Samsung's very own SGH-P520, which is no stranger to our news posts - some time ago the P520 made it through the FCC chambers. In some sense, the Samsung SGH-P520 is here to strike back at Apple iPhone and LG Prada: the handset comes equipped with a touch-screen and ditches any kind of keypad, with only pick/hang up buttons mounted on otherwise bare surface. The device is also remarkable for pocket-friendly dimensions and skinny profile.

Spec sheet of Samsung SGH-P520:

• GSM/EDGE (triband) connectivity
• Touch-sensitive QVGA display measuring 2,6 inches from corner to corner, capable of 262K colors
• 50 Mb of built-in memory
  
• microSD-socket
• 3 MPix camera
  
• A2DP-enabled Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi with UMA support
  
• 960 mAh battery
• Talk time - 180 minutes
• Standby time - 220 hours
• Dimensions - 88x54x8,9 mm
• Weight - 102 grams