Latest Mobile Phone News

First seen last month, when Pantech announced its new TruEmotion 3D User Interface, the IM-R470S touchscreen phone is now available in South Korea, via SK Telecom.

Launched under Pantech’s Sky brand, the IM-R470S seems to be a great multimedia device.

It can play unconverted video files (H.264, MPEG4, DivX, XviD) and display them on the 3.2 inch WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) Sharp LCD screen, which has a 160 degree viewing angle.

The phone also features the already-mentioned TruEmotion 3D Cube UI, accelerometer, proximity sensor, DMB TV tuner, Back Ground Play, Picture in Picture, GPS, Bluetooth, a 3MP autofocus camera, and 4GB of internal memory.

The IM-R470S is a Korea-only handset, but let’s hope that Pantech will launch similar phones (with the TrueEmotion UI) outside its home country soon.

Popularity: 6%

O2 UK may have smartphones like the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre, but Orange has got exclusivity on one of the coolest Windows Mobile handsets out there: the Toshiba TG01.

Orange announced that it will offer the TG01 across the UK starting tomorrow, July 10, for free on select plans.

Orange’s Toshiba TG01 comes with an 8GB MicroSD card, and it’s pre-loaded with a “GI Joe” trailer, which should make good use of the phone’s 4.1 inch WVGA display and its 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.

Part of Orange’s Signature Series, Toshiba TG01 features quick links and shortcuts to Orange TV & Video, Orange Maps and Orange World.

Naturally, the 9.9mm-thin handset also has all those specs that we’ve presented many times until now: HSDPA connectivity, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.2MP autofocus camera and so on.

Popularity: 4%

Announced by HTC in only two color version, HTC Hero (the company’s third Android smartphone) will have a pink version too.

The pink Hero was spotted at The Carphone Warehouse, and it looks like it will be available in the UK starting this month.

The retailer doesn’t say how much the handset costs, but interested customers can pre-register here to find out when it will be available.

Most probably, Carphone will sell the HTC Hero unlocked

In case you don’t know yet, the Hero is HTC’s most advanced Android device.

Its features include: 3.2 inch WQVGA touchscreen display (fingerprint-resistant), 5MP autofocus camera, HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headset jack, and the brand new HTC Sense User Interface.

Popularity: 4%

Motorola may be panning its revival hopes on the upcoming Android smartphones, but it still manages to launch a new phone once in a while.

Most of new Moto phones look pretty dated, low end and do not generate much interest. But sometimes even Motorola can surprise us.

Case in point is the new Motorola ROKR ZN50 music phone.

Moto ROKR ZN50 is a full touchscreen music slider, strangely being launched in Korea only.

It comes with new Motorola panorama user interface, which “supports three separate screens, allowing more widgets and shortcuts to be arranged according to usage patterns”.

MotoROKR ZN50 specs include:

* WCDMA 2100, GSM 900/1800/1900, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps connectivity
* 3.2”, 240×427px 262k TFT color display
* 3.2 mpx camera
* SRS WOW HD sound system, built-in EQ
* Built in GPS
* microSD slot for up to 16GB of memory
* T-DMB2 TV tuner
* Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 (HS), 3.5 mm headphone jack
* 950 mAh battery
* Dimensions: 54 (W) x 108.9 (H) x 14.34(T) mm
* Weight: 143g

Except for the camera, spec and design wise Motorola ROKR ZN50 looks pretty good, if a bit on the thick side for my taste.

And it’s interesting to see that Motorola has it’s very own full touch interface in the works. I wonder whether it will stay only on its feature phones, or will be improved and ported on Motorola Android devices too?

Popularity: 5%

Here the first hands-on video of Sony Ericssons latest gaming phone, the Sony Ericsson Yari.

Popularity: 6%

Nokia N97 is the flagship phone combines a touch display and a QWERTY keyboard in a slide+tilt form factor. Key features include 32 GB of built-in memory, a 5-megapixel camera, FM transmitter, WiFi, and GPS.

Popularity: 6%

Vodafone and Nokia have announced a new exclusive 6730 classic phone which is designed for the mass market. Nokia 6730 classic, which begins shipping in June and will be available exclusively across Vodafone’s global footprint. The device will give access to full range of Vodafone services including its Vodafone Music client and personal and business email access along with mobile navigation capabilities. Nokia describes the 6730 Classic as a fitting upgrade to anyone with a Nokia 6500 Classic or Nokia 6300 currently in their pockets.With a candy bar style form factor, the device will be powered by S60 3rd edition and will be equipped with a 2.2 inch display

Popularity: 3%

The folks at BGR has published a few pictures of the new Nokia 6790 Mako. The Nokia Mako is a futuristic looking side-slider GSM smarthphone with a full QWERTY keyboard. It runs on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition OS with Feature Pack 2 and sport a 2-megapixel camera, GPS and a 2.5 mm jack. If you have a minute or two, head over to BGR and check out the gallery

Popularity: 5%

Samsung Galaxy i7500, the first Android phone announced by Samsung, will be available next month (August) in the UK via O2.

It’s not clear yet if O2 will be the only British mobile operator to offer the Galaxy i7500, but one thing’s certain: the carrier will have an impressive line-up of smartphones this summer, including the iPhone 3G S, the Palm Pre and possibly the Toshiba TG01 too.

Coming with Android 1.5 OS on board, Samsung Galaxy has a nice set of features, including: a 3.2 inch AMOLED touchscreen display with 320 x 480 pixels, quad-band GSM and tri-band HSPA connectivity, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headset jack, a 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 8GB of internal memory and MicroSD card support.

Popularity: 5%

DK and Hisham visit Nokia Singapore to take a first look at the highly anticipated Nokia N97, that’s going to be on sale in Singapore in June 2009 by all 3 carriers.

Popularity: 5%

T-Mobile USA is set to launch another affordable Samsung phone called the t239. It is slated to be available this month at the price point of $59.99 for a prepaid service or free on a two year contract.

Specifications are due to include dual band GSM connectivity 850/1900 MHz, a 177 x 220 pixels TFT display, a speakerphone, Bluetooth support, a VGA camera and 10MB of internal memory. T-Mobile’s myFaves unlimited calling to five numbers will be supported, as will Web2go. The t239 is a slider that comes in two color versions; dark scarlet and grey. And from the looks of it, there will be a free $25 refill card used for their prepaid service when you purchase it.

Popularity: 5%

The guys at HDBlog.it has published a new video preview of the Samsung i7500. The Samsung I7500 is the first Samsung phone running Android OS. It features 3.2-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED screen with a resolution of 320×480 pixels, 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, 8GB internal memory and microSDHC card slot.

Popularity: 4%

Nokia 5630 XpressMusic Pictures – The Nokia 5630 XpressMusic runs on a powerful ARM11 processor at 600 MHz and features a 2.2” TFT QVGA display with 16 million colors. It features microSDHC memory slot and stereo Bluetooth. Also on-board is a 3.5mm jack, which is one of the must-have features on a music phone, and a 3.2-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, also capable of recording 640×480 video at 15 frames per second.

Popularity: 7%

Good new to all of our Nokia readers, The OVI Store has gone online and for the the moment its only available for the Vodafone customers in Australia. It shouldn’t take to long now before its launched in other countries too! YEY. To download the OVI store application, find your “download icon” and open the application, then refresh the content and then go to Nokia Extra’s Category and you should find the OVI Icon there. Check out a video preview of the OVI store after the break

Keep in mind that the Ovi Store will only be available through a select number of devices in select countries.

Update: OVI Store has also launshed in Ireland

Popularity: 3%

Planned to be launched on June 5th, HowardForums member 91ZCpe has managed to grap one from Verizon Wireless and shared a series of the LG enV Touch XV11000 live photos. As a successor of the old LG Voyager, the unique enV Touch is a clamshell with two 3-inch WVGA display screen for internal and external display. The clamshell design is meant for using the phone in landscape mode, together with the QWERTY hardware keyboard.

The LG enV Touch XV11000 also comes with a 3.2 megapixel, using a Schneider Kreuznach optics and assisted by auto focusing and LED flash. The built in microSD card slot will support up to 16GB of microSD card, while the 3.5mm headphone jack will support most of your headphones for music listening. If you are going to buy one.

Popularity: 3%