866 Cellphones
Just another Cellphones News weblog
More than 2 million Samsung Jet phones pre-ordered
Author: +866.com21 Jun
Unveiled last week as a handset that’s “smarter than a smartphone”, the Samsung Jet S8000 will apparently be one of the Sammy’s most successful devices of 2009.
The company has announced that it received more than 2 million pre-orders for the Jet.
We’re not sure if this includes the units that can already be purchased from Vodafone UK, but, either way, it’s an impressive number.
The new phone has a set of very nice features, including a 3.1 inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display, TouchWiz UI 2.0, HSDPA connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS, 5MP camera, 800 MHz processor and 2GB of internal memory.
Starting this month, Samsung Jet S8000 should be available worldwide, in no less than 50 countries.
Via Telecoms Korea
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Samsung Houdini – T-Mobile’s third Android phone?
Author: +866.com28 Apr
A phone named after the great Harry Houdini has to be a cool one, right? Add a touch of Android, plus Samsung’s know-how, and you probably have a real winner there.
What am I talking about? Well, it looks like T-Mobile USA is getting ready to launch a so-called Samsung Houdini later this year.
The handset is part of T-Mo’s Android line-up, and, according to a document found at CellPhoneSignal, it will be released sometime in the fall, several months after the G2 / Magic / MyTouch 3G.
Details about the Samsung Houdini are scarce for the moment, but the handset looks somewhat similar to the Samsung i7500 – so it might be its US edition.
The above-seen document also unveils the possible contract price of MyTouch 3G: $179 – just like the current price of T-Mobile G1 (which, by the way, will be sold for only $149 starting… this month?).
All in all, good news for T-Mobile’s subscribers in the US.
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AT&T officially announces the BlackBerry Curve 8900
Author: +866.com28 Apr
Not long after we’ve heard that the BlackBerry Curve 8900 may be coming to AT&T, now the giant blue carrier has officially confirmed the smartphone’s release.
Unfortunately, AT&T didn’t give us an exact launch date, but it said the Curve 8900 would be available starting “early summer”.
The handset’s price is also unknown, but I guess it will be of around $200 on contract.
As we’ve already said, AT&T’s Curve 8900 is similar to the one available via T-Mobile – although, of course, it will provide exclusive stuff like AT&T Navigator and free Wi-Fi at almost 20,000 AT&T hot spots.
Well, until AT&T actually releases the smartphone, you can read our BlackBerry Curve 8900 review here.
Via Press release
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Sony Ericsson W995a approved by the FCC
Author: +866.com28 Apr
The North American version of Sony Ericsson W995, namely the W995a, was recently approved by the FCC – which means the phone might be soon launched in the US and Canada.
Codenamed Sony Ericsson Hikaru, the W995 / W995a is SE’s second handset that has an 8MP photo camera. Despite this, it’s not a Cyber-shot phone, but a Walkman one.
So, besides the nice photography-related features, the W995a also comes with a 3.5mm headset jack, Walkman 4.0 player, shake control, TrackID, stereo FM radio, stereo speakers and stereo Bluetooth.
No word yet if the W995a will be picked by a North American carrier (AT&T, Rogers?), or if it will be sold unlocked. In the second case, the slider will probably be quite expensive.
Via Engadget
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Nokia E52 introduced – affordable Eseries smartphone
Author: +866.com28 Apr
Without much fanfare, Nokia has just announced its newest Eseries smartphone, the Nokia E52.
If you expect a revolutionary design from the E52, don’t. The new phone is just an E55 without a QWERTY keypad. So, yeah, it’s a slim candybar with a 2.4 inch QVGA display.
Like the E55, Nokia E52 is said to have an “impressive battery life” which should provide a talk-time of up to 8 hours with a single full-charge. It also comes with GPS, a 3.2MP camera, Ovi Services, noise cancellation and “the new email UI from the Nokia E75”.
Moreover, Nokia E52 supports HSDPA for up to 10.2Mbps and HSUPA for up to 2Mbps.
The handset has two color versions, silver and brown (like the 5MP E71i, perhaps):
Nokia said the E52 would be available starting the second half of the year, for a retail price of around €245 ($325).
Here’s a hands-on video with the Nokia E52, from Nokia Conversations:
Source: Nokia
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Nokia E52 introduced – affordable Eseries smartphone
Author: +866.com28 Apr
Without much fanfare, Nokia has just announced its newest Eseries smartphone, the Nokia E52.
If you expect a revolutionary design from the E52, don’t. The new phone is just an E55 without a QWERTY keypad. So, yeah, it’s a slim candybar with a 2.4 inch QVGA display.
Like the E55, Nokia E52 is said to have an “impressive battery life” which should provide a talk-time of up to 8 hours with a single full-charge. It also comes with GPS, a 3.2MP camera, Ovi Services, noise cancellation and “the new email UI from the Nokia E75”.
Moreover, Nokia E52 supports HSDPA for up to 10.2Mbps and HSUPA for up to 2Mbps.
The handset has two color versions, silver and brown (like the 5MP E71i, perhaps):
Nokia said the E52 would be available starting the second half of the year, for a retail price of around €245 ($325).
Here’s a hands-on video with the Nokia E52, from Nokia Conversations:
Source: Nokia
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Nokia Photo Browser app features 3D effects, face browsing and more
Author: +866.com3 Apr
Nokia Photo Browser is the name of a new application for Nokia’s touchscreen phones (Symbian S60 5th Edition), designed to let you easily browse and view images stored on your handset.
The app is still in beta, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t look cool.
It comes with features like intuitive touch UI with 3D effects, magnifying glass and face browsing (allowing you to focus the image on a particular face and then quickly browse to the other faces in the photo).
If you have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, you can download Nokia Photo Browser from here.
The application will obviously work on Nokia N97 too, and it will soon be released for Nokia’s non-touchscreen phones (Symbian S60 3.x).
A video with the app in action can be watched below:
Via Nokia Beta Labs
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Samsung S8300 UltraTouch / Tocco review
Author: +866.com3 Apr
Samsung UltraTouch S8300 (known as Samsung Ultra Tocco in U.K), is heading for the shops right about now, so I think it is a good time to give this handset a closer look.
Samsung Ultra Touch has quite an interesting mix within it – 8 megapixel camera, full touchscreen interface and physical T9 keypad.
It is not the first TouchWiz UI equipped Samsung phone – they have already been selling like hotcakes throughout 2008.
But this kind of feature combination is the first for the Korean vendor. In a closed position, you may never guess that UltraTouch S8300 is not just another touchphone – the sliding keypad does not significantly alter the overall size of the device.
Slide it open and you get a normal feature phone with a familiar keypad, which is a really nice bonus. You can easily get by without ever opening the slider, but the keypad comes in handy quite often - actually, I found myself using it a lot. Even answering calls by opening the slider is a much more intuitive thing than tapping a touch button.
The construction of Samsung Ultra Touch is not the only thing that sets it apart from other handsets. New generation of widgets, photo contact application, great video capabilities… I could go on and on, but let’s dive into the details already.
Samsung Ultra Touch Design
Both the inside and the outside of Samsung S8300 Ultra Touch are very good. The overall design is pretty striking, but not too flashy, and gives the Samsung S8300 almost a premium look.
When closed, UltraTouch looks like any other grey-metallic Samsung phone, the nice red bezel being its only distinguishing feature. Open the slider and its colorfulness emerges. The colors are bright, but not too much so they don’t transform the Ultra Touch into a girly phone. It’s a fully “unisex” handset, that both you and your girlfriend can carry around.
The chassis of Samsung Ultra Touch combines metal and plastic, with the prevalence of metallic parts and some plastic elements. The upper sliding body is fully metallic, while the keypad and battery cover are made from plastic. Samsung has used good quality materials to make the UltraTouch S8300, thus the handset has a nice tactile feel overall. It also does not get any smudges or dust, even after extensive use.
Well, except for the display, but the screen is very easy to clean as well.
Samsung S8300 UltraTouch Display
Samsung S8300 UltraTouch’s display is one its distinguishing features. The S8300 is one of the few handsets today that comes equipped with an AMOLED screen. The pictures on it look very good, with really bright and lively colors. Even in bright sunlight the display dims only a bit, and can be easily viewed. The display has 2.8 inches and a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels, which is common for Samsung’s latest handsets. It might feel a bit small for Net browsing, but most multimedia needs are served nicely on a display of this size.
User Interface, Usability & Ergonomics of Samsung S8300 Ultra Touch
From the usability point of view, I cannot find any beef with it. By now, Samsung has got the TouchWiz UI working pretty well and it’s very easy to use.
On the UltraTouch, Samsung has made its desktop area span beside the actual visible area of the device’s screen. By swiping a finger you can scroll up and down through it to access additionl widgets.
One of the most interesting applications on the Samsung S8300 is PhotoContacts. It allows you to associate people in the pictures with contacts in the address book. After doing that, you only need to click on a contact’s photo to make a call or send SMS to a particular person.
Any problems inherent in full touchscreen phones, on Samsung S8300 Ultra Touch are easily remedied by the physical keypad and numerical navigation options. So even when wearing gloves (capacitive touchscreen does not work with covered fingers), the phone is pretty easy to use. The only thing that I found to complain about is a separte unlock key, but you get used to it pretty quickly.
Samsung UltraTouch camera
So what does this beauty have inside of it? Well, tons of very nice things.
Let’s start with the camera on Samsung UltraTouch. Maximum resolution on it is 3264 x 2448 pixels, which gives you a total of 8 mpx. The pictures at this resolution are pretty “heavy” – 2 megabyte a piece, so be sure to use a big memory card if you plan to take a lot of them.
The camera settings are quite extensive and should fit the needs of most of the creative types. You can set white balance, autofocus parameters (macro, face and smile recognition, panorama focus), manual ISO (100-1600) settings and digital image stabilization.
Samsung S8300 has a GPS chip inside and is able to use EXIF geotags on the photos, so you can sort your pictures by location on most of the popular photosharing sites and applications. Samsung UltraTouch can manually or automatically upload your pictures to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and other services.
The camera of Samsung S8300 also has pretty good video shooting capabilities. It records at 30fps, 720 x 480 resolution, and has 3 different compression modes.
Samsung UltraTouch’s camera is operational only in open slider mode, with the slider mechanism serving as a lens cover too.
Multimedia on Samsung Ultra Touch
The music player on Samsung S8300 is pretty good and easy to use. The only problem is the lack of a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, but that should be remedied by the adapter.
The videoplayer cand play all major video formats, including DivX at VGA (680 x 480 pixels) resolution and 1.5 Mbps bitrate – which is really great for a mobile phone.
Samsung UltraTouch has a built-in accelerometer and switches between portrait and landscape mode automatically both in video and browsing modes. Unfortunately, it does this only in one direction – left. If you turn the phone on its right side, you still get the landscape mode, but picture will be upside down.
Conclusions
When Samsung UltraTouch S8300 was first announced, it looked like just another 8 megapixel slider. This time from Samsung and, again, with its TouchWiz UI.
But a closer look at the phone left me impressed. Great design, some interesting new approaches, and a very good usability makes the Samsung S8300 UltraTouch a very good choice if you are in the market for this type of feature phones.
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Foxconn forms Android R
Author: +866.com3 Apr
Foxconn, one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, has reportedly established an Android research and development team, with the obvious intention to produce smartphones based on Google’s open source platform.
I’m sure you’ve already heard of Foxconn, but, in case you haven’t, you should know the company manufactures products that reach the market under famous brands like Apple (Mac Mini, iPod, iPhone), Dell, HP, Intel, Sony and Amazon (the Kindle e-reader).
Foxconn also makes handsets for Motorola, so it’s likely that the mentioned R&D team will work to develop Android smartphones for the big M.
Motorola has been rumored to come with an Android handset as early as Q2 2009, so Foxconn’s venture into Android-land pretty much makes sense.
Now let’s wait and see what will come out of this.
Via DigiTimes
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Sanyo SCP-2700 and LG Lotus in red announced by Sprint
Author: +866.com3 Apr
Today, Sprint has unveiled two new messaging phones that will be launched later this spring: the Sanyo SCP-2700 and a dark red version of the already-available LG Lotus.
The first handset, Sanyo SCP-2700, is a candybar presented by the US carrier as being “stylish and easy-to-use”. It obviously has a full QWERTY keyboard, plus Sprint-exclusive stuff like Sprint Navigator, Sprint Mobile Email Work and Sprint Family Locator.
The phone will be available starting May 10, in two color versions: blue and pink.
The specs of Sanyo SCP-2700 include:
- 1xRTT connectivity
- 2.2 inch TFT display with 320 x 240 pixels and 65K colors
- Bluetooth
- Enhanced messaging features
- 1.3MP camera
- Talk-time: up to 4.8 hours
- 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches
- 3.4 ounces
So how much will this SCP-2700 cost? Only $29.99 – obviously with a two-year contract agreement and after the usual $50 mail-in rebate.
Available until now in purple and black, LG Lotus will be released in a third color version: the above-mentioned dark red one.
Sprint didn’t say when the new Lotus will hit the shelves, but it should happen pretty soon.