Latest Mobile Phone News

Skyfire announced today that they are expanding availability of their PC Web experience mobile browser to Canada. Now Canadians can watch live sports like NHL hockey, NBA basketball, or use their favorite music and video services that they enjoy on their PCs, as a free download at www.skyfire.com. The Skyfire support full Flash, Ajax, Quicktime and more, it can be installed with either Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 smartphones. Some users who are not in US have already reported to successfully download the Skyfire by using random US mobile number.

“Skyfire users love being able to browse media rich sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and ESPN,” said CMO Adam Sexton, “Our users prove that with Skyfire, mobile web browsing is very similar to PC Web browsing. We are pleased to bring Skyfire to Canada so that users there can use their mobile phones to visit sites that take full advantage of everything Web 2.0 has to offer.”

Skyfire is currently in open beta on the Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile platforms and available as a free download at www.skyfire.com.

Popularity: 5%

AT&T has announced it will begin offering free AT&T Wi-FiSM service to current and new customers of select smartphones, including the new BlackBerry Bold, available Nov. 4. AT&T has more than 17,000 hot spots including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and thousands of other locations.

AT&T is offering the free Wi-Fi service to customers with unlimited data plans. In addition to the BlackBerry Bold, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 and the BlackBerry 8820 will follow later this year, and AT&T plans to make the offer available to more mobile devices in the future. Additional details, including instructions on how to access the hot spots, are available at www.attwifi.com.

Popularity: 7%

Samsung and Alltel have announced the Samsung SCH-r800 Delve which is a full touchscreen phone that boasts Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface on a 3-inch 240×400 pixel touchscreeen display. The Delve will also have a 3.5mm headphone jack, along with Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, microSD card expansion, and EV-DO. The phone is up for pre-order today at $199.99 on a 2-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate. The phone will be available in stores and online on November 7th.

Popularity: 13%

Many people were wondering how well Apple’s iPhone would do in Japan, since it’s a totally different market from that in the US, but since SoftBank agreed to be Apple’s iPhone 3G carrier partner, the carrier has seen their bottom line move upwards. Even in the current global economic situation the strong sales of the iPhone 3G helped Softbank increase its net profits to $225 million and saw the biggest net subscriber growth in 17 consecutive months. Whichever way you look at it, the iPhone 3G definitely has been beneficial to SoftBank.

Popularity: 8%

The folks over at Japan will be getting the Samsung Omnia this November via SoftBank. Now before you start laughing at them and stating that the phone is already available in Europe, do take note of the specs of the phone. The Japanese Omnia will be called the SoftBank 930SC Omnia, an will have a 3.3-inch touchscreen that has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, which is a hug increase from the standard 240×400 pixels. Aside from the screen, the phone will also have a built-in 1-Seg TV tuner, and will be available in black, white or red.

Popularity: 13%

If you’re desperate for Nokia’s N96 phone, then all you have to do is fork over a measly $799.99 to Best Buy. We’re not sure whether it’s more painful for the phone not to be available, or to be available but priced beyond most people. For those of you who are still undecided whether you want drop $800 for this phone, you can always drop by the store as there are now demo units in some stores.

Popularity: 9%

It looks like BoyGenius took some time to go attend Verizon’s BlackBerry Storm launch party at Log Angeles, and took plenty of pictures of the whole thing. Based on the feedback on the device, it looks like people are still complaining that the Storm is a little laggy and the new “Touch-click” method of using the touchscreen is a little irritating. Hopefully Verizon will work out the little problems before they start shipping the phone to users.

Popularity: 8%

Best Buy and CompUSA is going to sell unlocked BlackBerry Bold 9000 directly to consumer, with a price tag of $660 and $799.99 respectively. Best Buy has put up the BlackBerry Bold for pre-ordering. If you need the smartphone urgently, CompUSA has the smartphone in stock today but with a much higher price tag. At the $169.41 BOM and manufacturing cost revealed by iSuppli today, you can imagine how much profit they can make from you for a BlackBerry Bold!

The Bold is RIM’s first BlackBerry to include support for the 3G/High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) air interface standard and the first to include a full QWERTY keyboard. Along with the faster network connection, the Bold’s performance is boosted by sheer processing power via the addition of an updated 624MHz Marvell-based processor and an improved Blackberry Operating System (OS) 4.6 platform.

Popularity: 8%

You may not see many phones by it, but Alcatel is still around and selling phones. This time it has come up with another entry-level handset that has a built-in accelerometer in the form of the Alcatel OT-I650. If you were wondering what the phone would do with an accelerometer, well, it’s to make it easier for you to switch between applications by simply shaking the phone, which is quite similar to some of Sony Ericsson’s music phones. Features of the phone include:

* Music player
* FM radio
* Bluetooth connectivity
* 1.3 megapixel camera
* Flashlight
* 12 hours talk time
* 30 days standby time

Popularity: 5%

Most concept phones tend to look almost impossible to manufacture, but this time David Turpin has come up with a concept design that actually looks like you might see it in the stores sometime in the future. Granted, these designers probably don’t have to do think about which part goes where, but it’s still nice to look at concept phones every now and then.

Popularity: 8%

Some people want the most high-tech phone they are able to get their hands on, while some others might just want a basic phone to make calls. While Nokia’s 2600 isn’t exactly new, it has just hit the US via AT&T at the moment. If you’re willing to accept a two-year contract, you’ll be able to get the phone for free. The Nokia 2600 will be available in black or red, and will have the following features:

* Dual band GSM/GPRS connectivity, 850/1900MHz
* 128 x 128 pixels TFT display
* Web browser and MEdia Net
* Email, Instant Messaging
* Bluetooth connectivity
* MP3 ringtones
* Hands-free speakerphone
* VGA camera

Popularity: 9%

Mobile phones from Japan always make us drool, and Casio’s W63CA Exilim phone is no different. A quick glance at the phone and the first thing you’ll probably notice is the 480 x 800 pixel 3.1-inch OLED display, which is about the same number of pixels found on HTC’s Touch HD, but crammed into a smaller display. The Exilim branding obviously means that it has some photography prowess, and it features a wide-angle lens, 9-point auto-focus, face detection, anti-shake and a YouTube video mode that can record video at 30fps at VGA resolution

Popularity: 6%

Next2Friends announced the availability of its ‘Live’ mobile video broadcasting application for the BlackBerry Bold smartphone from Research In Motion. Next2Friends Live enables members to share their lives from anywhere, from broadcasting the little things that make up their day, to capturing a must-see-moment, to bringing you unfolding events from across the world closer to home. The application, soft-launched in late 2007 and officially released in June 2008, is continually being enhanced by the Next2Friends development team to deliver the optimal service for all the members already sharing their lives through real-time, rich media.

Visitors can sign up for a free Next2Friends members account at www.Next2Friends.com, download the application to their BlackBerry Bold and begin broadcasting immediately. Videos are automatically filed in the member’s personal video library where they can be easily shared with friends or embedded in other social networking profiles, websites and blogs.

Popularity: 7%

The folks over at CrackBerry have taken the time to take a closer look at the BlackBerry Storm. One of the more interesting features of the Storm is the SurePress touchscreen. A touch on the screen will highlight the target, while a press inward will select or activate the menu item, which seems like a really fun feature. Some of the aspects of the Storm that could be improved include the inclusion of Wi-Fi, more RAM and better graphics support. As for the ever-important text entry, it seems like it’s quite easy to type with the phone. Whichever way you look at it, it looks like the BlackBerry Storm will be a great addition to RIM’s army of BlackBerrys. Other features of the Storm include:

• BlackBerry OS vesion 4.7

• Size (L x W x D): 4.4″ x 2.4″ x 0.55″

• Weight (battery included): 5.46oz or 155g

• Memory: 128 MB RAM, 1GB internal storage, plus expandable memory via microSD card (8GB card bundled with purchase)

• Battery: 1400 mAh removable/rechargeable

• Display: 3.26″ High-resolution 480 x 360 pixel color display, Transmissive TFT LCD, supports over 65,000 colors and touchscreen navigation

• 528Mhz processor

• Stand-alone and assisted GPS

• USB port: MicroUSB for charging and high-speed data sync

Popularity: 9%

Samsung has launched another dual-SIM phone – the S9402 DuoS, with the name clearly indicating that it supports dual SIM cards. Aside from supporting dual SIM cards the phone is a luxury phone, which is made from premium materials which includes a hardened scratch resistant display glass, along with a metal frame covered with rhodium.

* Triband GSM (900/1800/1900 Mhz), GPRS/EDGE connectivity on 1st SIM card
* Dual band (900/1800 Mhz), GPRS/EDGE connectivity on 2nd SIM card
* 2-inch 262K color QVGA AMOLED display
* 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash
* Image stabilization and smile detector
* Integrated FM Radio with RDS
* 1GB internal memory
* microSDHC memory card slot (up to 8 GB)
* Bluetooth 2.0 and USB connectivity

Popularity: 15%