Latest Mobile Phone News

Remember those pictures of the Samsung Reclaim which we showed you a while ago? Well it looks like Sprint has decided to come forward with the official announcement of the phone.

The Reclaim is an eco-friendly phone made with 80% recycled materials. The phone will offer you a full slide-out QWERY keyboard, a 2-megapixel camera with video recording, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, GPS, microSDHC up to 32GB and a 2.3-inch screen.

Of course you’ll have to get a brand new 2-year agreement but if you’re looking for a cheap entry level phone filled with more than decent features then the Samsung Reclaim is worth getting that new contract. And on top of everything $2 will go to The Nature Conservancy Adopt an Acre program for every Reclaim sold by Sprint.

Popularity: 10%

Samsung is getting ready to introduce a new Windows Mobile smartphone in China, namely the Samsung i329.

Looking like a redesigned Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 (which also runs on Windows Mobile), the i329 features: a 3 inch touchscreen display with 240 x 400 pixels, TouchWiz UI, 512MB of internal memory, a Qualcomm QSC6975 chipset, and MicroSDHC card support, up to 32GB.

According to Telecoms Korea, the Samsung i329 will be soon launched by China Unicom on its new CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Rev.0 network. However, since China Unicom transferred its CDMA business to China Telecom, the smartphone will probably be launched by the latter carrier and not by Unicom.

Since it’s a CDMA smartphone, Samsung i329 may reach carriers outside of China – Verizon or Sprint, anyone?

Popularity: 7%

MetroPCS and Samsung Mobile USA have announced a limited edition of the Samsung Messager r450, which was designed in collaboration with SA Studios Global and Mark Machado (aka Mister Cartoon)

Based in LA, Mister Cartoon is a famous tattoo artist who worked until now with stars like Beyonce, Eminem and Justin Timberlake.

Obviously, the new Samsung Messager comes with a case dressed in Mister Cartoon’s graphics, plus exclusive wallpapers, animations, ringtones and other downloadable content.

According to Samsung, “a portion of the revenue from the phone will go to fund community art centers, outreach programs for at-risk youth and provide art supplies to local Los Angeles schools.”

Samsung Messager r450 MetroPCS open

There will be 30,000 units of the Mr. Cartoon Messager phone released. The first ten units are signed by the tattoo artist himself and will be auctioned on MetroPCS’s official site in five days from now.

Popularity: 5%

Two new Philips phones will hit the market in he near future – the K700 and the X501.

Featuring a full touchscreen display, the K700 is one of the few Philips handsets that don’t have an X in their name (although it’s part of the Xenium series).

Philips K700 comes with a 3.2MP camera and, most probably, with a battery that can last for at least one month in stand-by time.

The phone looks pretty cool, as you ca see in the image below:

Moving on, the X501 is a candybar that seems to be an upgrade of the Philips X500, appeared back in September 2008.

Not much is known about the X501, but we can see that it has a 2MP camera.

No word yet on when or where the Philips K700 and X501 will be available.

Popularity: 3%

Continuing its somewhat clever way of naming products (remember the TruEmotion UI?), Pantech has just launched a new phone, dubbed Pantech doublEye IM-U490S.

Released under the Sky brand, Pantech doublEye is a slider that has a Picture-in-picture feature and lets you use the photo camera and the video camera at the same time.

The phone also comes with a 2.6-inch QVGA display, animated Flash menu, widgets support, HSPDA (7.2Mbps), DMB-TV tuner, music player, 3MP camera, 130MB of internal memory and MicroSD card support.

The price of Pantech doublEye is of 400,000 South Korean won (about $328). The phone is sold via SK Telecom and it probably won’t be released outside Korea.

Popularity: 8%

BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America have recently unveiled the winners of the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) – and Samsung received no less than 8 awards.

One of the bronze IDEA awards that Samsung got is for a so-called Social Campaign Smartphone.

The full touchscreen handset seems to be only a concept for the moment, but, if it will ever be commercially released, it could help “people to demonstrate their support of a particular social cause and encourage others to make donations to that cause.”

The smartphone should come with a customized backplate that can be attached to it and provide info about the social cause that a user is supporting (like providing relief to the poor, reducing environmental pollution and so on).

Further details about the Samsung Social Campaign smartphone are not known. Well, let’s hope that Samsung will eventually release it.

Popularity: 6%

As a kid, I was always fascinated by the Guinness Book of World records. There were and still is a litany of strange world records listed. My favorite strange record was the one for longest fingernails. Today the book is also available in an edition for gamers.

Guinness and Warner Brothers Digital announced today that a new game for the iPhone is now available on the App Store that lets players break world records. Not only can the player set records in the virtual world, but the player who racks up the most points by August 15 will get a real world record as well.

The players have to save their scores to a GameSpy account and the winner will get their name in the next Guinness World Records 2010 Gamer’s Edition. The game itself was developed by TT Games and features cockroach eating, melon crush and the largest bubblegum balloon.

Popularity: 2%

It seems that Canadian consumers 2 more handset options to choose from as it was recently announced that HTC’s Touch Pro2 and Snap have hit TELUS.

The HTC Touch Pro2 is crurrently priced at $249.99 on a 3-year contract while the HTC Snap is free on the same contract. In terms of specs, both of these are Windows Mobile smart phones and feature things such as WiFI, GPS, Bluetooth and visual voicemail.

Popularity: 4%

available from Verizon soon. The Motorola Sholes is the Android phone in question and if you’re interested in unofficial features then you should know this handset will offer you a 3.7-inch touchscreen, CDMA, EV-DO Rev A support, 512MB of storage, 256MB of RAM, microSD and microSDHC support for up to 16GB, a 5-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, USB and WiFi. Verizon should launch it sometime so you’ll have to wait a while if you have just fallen in love with it.

Popularity: 7%

LG Electronics unveils another folding form factor mobile phone with the release of the LG KG376 phone. The LG KG376 seems to be designed for use by teens, particularly the women due to its external fine graphics work. The design is made of round flowers and twisting stems of red color.

The exterior combines a color combination of beige, gold and red, which should easily capture the attention of mobile enthusiasts today. It has an indicator light similar to the Sony Ericsson phones which blinks when an incoming call or text message arrives.

It has a compact size which should be handy to handle for cellphone owners and weighs only 73 grams. It also comes with FM radio. It has an internal memory that can accommodate up to 1 MB.

Popularity: 3%

Samsung F480 La Fleur pictures – The Samsung SGH-F480 is another all-touch phone and the first to use the TouchWiz interface, which is the successor of the Croix found on previous models. It features a 2.8″ TFT Touch display with 240×320 pixels resolution, 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, image and video stabilization and has an abundance of multimedia functions, including a video editor, RDS FM Radio and Media player.All this is packed into small and slim stylish body, resembling the PRADA by LG.

Popularity: 7%

It’s certainly not the first time that we see the LG BL40, but now we can see it in the first official pictures.

Posted on Twiter by an LG spokesman, the three pictures confirm the fact that the BL40 is indeed a good looking phone.

The BL40 is referred to as “New Chocolate”, but it’s not clear yet if this will be its official name.

As mentioned before, the LG BL40 Chocolate has a 800 x 345 pixels touchscreen display, a 5MP autofocus camera and probably many other cool features.

We still don’t know when LG will fully unveil the BL40, but that day shouldn’t be too far.

Popularity: 4%

Remember that Nokia N97 Mini, rumored to hit Vodafone later this year?

Well, it looks like this is more than just a rumor, as two pictures with the N97 Mini have just appeared over at Engadget.

Of course, for the moment no one can guarantee that this is indeed the Nokia N97 and not just another fake device.

However, supposing that this is the N97’s little brother, we can see that it’s both smaller and thinner, and it doesn’t have a sliding cover on the camera.

The N97 Mini is on the right:

Details about the features of Nokia N97 Mini are currently missing. Anyway, if Nokia does launch this Mini smartphone and it prices it right, it will probably be a success.

Popularity: 7%

Not long after it was launched by Orange in the UK, the HTC Hero is now available from T-Mobile as well, under the name of T-Mobile G2 Touch.

T-Mobile UK offers the G2 Touch even for free, but only with an 18-month contract agreement and a monthly plan of at least £35.

Although the Hero is HTC’s third Android phone, it’s only the second one to be launched by T-Mobile UK.

I’m sure you already know the main features of HTC Hero / T-Mobile G2 Touch, but just in case you’ve missed them, here they are:

* 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen display
* Android OS 1.5
* GPS
* Wi-Fi
* 3.5mm headset jack
* 5MP camera with autofocus

If you’re in the UK, you can buy the T-Mobile G2 Touch from here.

HTC Hero may reach the US too, possibly via Sprint and AT&T, but there are no clear details about this at the moment.

Popularity: 4%

T-Mobile USA has just unveiled the upcoming availability of HTC Touch Pro2, which will be on sale via the fourth largest US carrier starting August 12.

Obviously coming as the successor of HTC Touch Pro, the Touch Pro2 can already be bought in Europe and Asia.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone has many advanced features, including: a 3.6 inch WVGA tilting touchscreen display, 3G GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.2MP camera and, of course, a full QWERTY keyboard.

T-Mobile USA’s Touch Pro2 will be available in only one color version, and that’s mocha. Unfortunately, the price was not disclosed.

AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are planning to offer the HTC Touch Pro2 as well, but probably after August 12 (none of the carriers have announced the smartphone yet).

Popularity: 4%