Latest Mobile Phone News

Apple will show off a preview version of iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch at the iPad 2 media event, on March 2nd, at  the famous Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco. Before it come we cannot say anything about its features, a new revamped notification system is under work, might be introduced with iOS 5. Apple may release iOS 5 with the next-gen iPhone5 in this summer. But in my opinion it is very much expected that these will hit this summer!

Popularity: 6%

Vodafone subscribers have a reason to rejoice. After Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, the country’s third largest telecom operator in terms of number of subscribers, Vodafone will soon be rolling out its 3G services. The company has recently launched its advertising campaign regarding 3G during the ongoing cricket world cup. It is to be noted that Vodafone had purchased airwaves in nine service areas for over Rs 11 crores in the 3G auctions and tested 3G services in December. But at that time Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had raised objections regarding security surveillance of services such as video calling. Meanwhile, Vodafone has come up with several service offerings which includes a 3G device which can be used a Wi-Fi to connect to several laptops in office.  The company however, has not revealed the packages and prices of its 3G services. Keeping in mind that other operators too will be rolling out 3G services, it is expected that the price of the services will be kept competitive. With the help of 3G services, connecting and surfing internet via mobile phones will become much faster.

Popularity: 2%

With the passage of time Apple have introduced powerful Dual and Quad-Core processors in their devices like we have seen in the latest iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch versions, but to run those devices consistently for a long period of time more power is required, Apple realizes this need and is nowadays looking for a solution. Although iPhone 4 have more battery timing rather than its predecessor but still it’s owners want more for the next day. Maybe the new iPhone 5 will come with enhanced battery time but we’ll have to wait and see. But for now do you need more battery for browsing, gaming and for calling?

Popularity: 6%

Samsung S5260 Star II touch screen phone has been released after a pretty long time since Samsung Star made its debut and repeating the super success of Samsung Star is a challenge which lies ahead of Samsung S5260 Star II. The phone has been released at a point when the market of touch screen feature phones is still going strong amidst strong sales of smartphones.  In today’s market, design of any phone plays an important role and with the surge in smartphones design has become an important aspect for feature phones. Samsung S5260 Star II is a compact phone which you can easily slip into your pocket.

Samsung S5260 Star II dimensions measures 107.5 x 54 x 12.4 mm and the device is quite light weighing approximately 95 grams. If you are habituated on holding phones which give a solid impression when held then you are going to be slightly disappointed with Samsung S5260 Star II. But the rounded back of the phone makes it quite comfortable to hold the phone. Design wise the phone is not much different from its predecessor but the lacquered surface gives it a much superior finish. The phone is equipped with a 3 inches TFT capacitive touch screen which is capable of displaying pictures of resolution measuring 240 x 400 pixels. The display is equipped with accelerometer and proximity sensors and uses the TouchWiz 3.0 UI. Internal memory storage of 30 MB might not sound that pretty convincing, but a microSD card slot which supports 16GB memory will surly rejuvenate your spirits.

Connectivity of Samsung S5260 Star II is decent enough. For mobile internet you can rely upon the quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE. The phone supports GPRS (Class 12) and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n. Connectivity of the phone is further enhanced in the company of Bluetooth 3.0 with support for A2DP profile. Presence of microUSB port further enhances connectivity of the device. The phone is equipped with a 3.15 MP camera which is capable of clicking pictures of resolution measuring 2048×1536 pixels. As compared to a 3MP camera, the quality of the photos is quite good but video quality is not that great as the phone is capable of recording videos @ 15fps.

Popularity: 33%

The Sony Ericsson Spiro is a slide-form Dual Band GSM phone with a QVGA TFT display, sustaining up to 256,000 colours, measuring 2.2 inches point to point. The Spiro sports a fairly clear-cut, almost disarmingly humble frame with a sleek glossy front & a matte battery cover that makes for a pleasant contrast, besides preventing the mobile from slipping out of your palm during frantic use. At almost half the price of the Zylo, its Sony Ericsson stablemate, the Spiro makes much more sense, particularly if you hunt for a good music-playing mobile, since it comes with a 3.5mm headphone socket. It is extremely recommended that you endow in a good pair of earphones as the incorporated pair doesn’t do justice to the handset’s impressive playback quality. The phone also supports FM radio with RDS functionality.

As with many Sony Ericsson handsets, the Spiro sports a central, circular Navi key which is flanked by semi circle menu selection keys, which wrap around the call send/end keys. The describe allows for easy traversing of the menus, besides rendering easy control of the media player functions. The Spiro is powered by same Walkman 4.0 software that is featured in much higher end Sony Ericsson mobiles and delivers striking perfomance with PlayNow support. The mobile supports the TrackID function which lets you categorize a song just by listening it for a few seconds. Even though you need to rely on EDGE or GPRS connection to connect to Sony Ericsson’s data servers with your request. It also supports Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP for wirelessly streaming music. The Spiro sports a 2 MP camera at up to 2X digital zoom, which is fine for impromptu snaps to be send to friends via MMS. The mobile supports an impressive 2000 entries phonebook and recognizes microSD cards up to 16GB.

Popularity: 71%

HTC has always enhanced the mobile phones sector with stylish gadgets and was last spotted unleashing its ChaCha and Salsa handsets. The company has now joined hands with Sprint to roll out the HTC Arrive Windows Phone 7 smartphone with a sliding full QWERTY keyboard and tilt-up display. The offering enables punters to plunge themselves in various Microsoft services for example Microsoft Mobile Office, Zune, and Xbox Live. The Windows Phone 7 platform comes along with Hubs for faultless access to customers’ most liked content, counting people, pictures, games, music and video over and above Office along with Marketplace. The start screen can be easily tailored with Live Tiles which may also highlight pending messages and meetings, news and weather, games or friend status. Featuring full HTML web browser with advanced Bing Search, the latest phone enables clients to access corporate e-mails, personal e-mails and text messages with ease.

Moreover improved Wi-Fi and stereo Bluetooth 2.1 capabilities, the HTC Arrive houses a 5MP camera with flash, auto-focus, digital zoom and 720p HD camcorder. The audio experience is leveraged with SRS Wow HD surround sound. The gadget also features a media player with 3.5mm stereo headset jack. Customers can enjoy voice and text prompts in English and Spanish. As light as 6.5oz, the cell phone comes equipped with a Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a 3.6-inch 800 x 480 WVGA capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch abilities. The smartphone is powered by a 1500mAh Lithium-ion battery which is capable of delivering around 6 hours of talktime. Owners can store their favorite content easily using the handset’s 16GB internal memory. The HTC Arrive will hit stores starting March 20. This mobile handset will be accessible via Sprint retail channels. Customers can now pre-order the HTC Arrive through any participating Sprint Stor. Extra, these users’ names will be added to the device wait list and be contacted to pick the handset beginning March 20.

Popularity: 7%

As the mobile industry takes stock of a whirlwind week of new gadgets and ground-breaking technology at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, one new smartphone is dividing opinion. The LG Optimus 3D has been marketed as the handset that brings 3D images to smartphone owners for the first time, as well as packing a sizeable 4.3inch WVGA screen, a 1GHz dual-core, dual-channel processor and Android 2.2 Froyo, with Android 2.3 Gingerbread on its way following the phone’s release. The phone’s 3D interface is activated with a Hot Key, allowing users access to a 3D gallery, 3D games, YouTube 3D and a 3D camera, with two lenses mounted on the back of the phone.

Popularity: 8%

Microsoft have remarked on the story we brought you about the problems with the Windows Phone 7 update. We taled there were tribulations with the update on Samsung Omnia 7 mobiles which lead to them not turning on at all. Microsoft have now released a declaration and testimony on the crisis which found that 90 percent of Phone 7 owners have installed the update fittingly. Of the 10 percent that failed over half were due to lack of storage space or failed internet connections, both of which are simple to join.

On the other hand, the other 5 percent are the Samsung Omnia owners and Microsoft said they have acknowledged a dilemma with a small number of Samsung handsets. Accordingly, the update has been suspended to Samsung mobiles. No auxiliary information was given to cure a problem handset, but they stated that you should return the mobile to the retailer you bought it from. Microsoft also stated that punters should make sure they have a solid internet connection and enough hard-disk space before installing the update.

Popularity: 2%

Samsung will summarize the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with an 8.9-inch edition in the coming months. The 8.9-inch tablet will be released in the global market through mobile operators, a company spokesman said by phone, without disclosing further details or launching dates. The news comes just days after Samsung exposed to Pocket-lint that it will be releasing future tablets in a multiplicity of dissimilar screen sizes, even though it believes that its latest gadget, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, is the ideal size for the technology. It has also implied that the mid-range of screen sizes could, in the future, be filled by other gadgets – media players or mobile handsets - rather than tablets. In an elite briefing at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, with Pocket-lint in attendance, Samsung Mobile executive Dr WP Hong supposed that while he couldn’t offer confirmation on screen sizes per se, he could give an indication that the company is looking beyond the 7- and 10.1-inches that already exist in the range. As well as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, there will definitely be further tablet launches in 2011

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will come with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and features a 10.1 inch LCD display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. There is also a a dual core 1GHz processor, plus two cameras, an 8 megapixel camera on the rear with built in autofocus and an LED flash, and  a 2 megapixel camera on the front for video chat. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is capable of recording Full HD video in 1080p at 24 frames per second and it can also playback full HD video in 1080p at 30 frames per second. Other specifications on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 include Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, a gyroscope, accelerometer, a digital compass and a proximity sensor. It also features a 6860mAh battery and will come with a choice of 16GB or 32GB of storage, it will be available in Europe in March.

Popularity: 20%

Socious, leading provider of online community and meeting software, declared a foremost growth of its mobile platform. The discharge adds an entire mobile conference app to Socious’ popular mobile community software. “This is the first mobile membership platform to allow associations and organizations to run their member communication, online community, and events from the same system,” alleged Scott Balthazor, CEO of Socious. Over and above expanding the Socious mobile community platform, the latest mobile conference app is integrated in Socious’ event management product. Balthazor sustained, “Conference organizers can now manage their meetings, handle online registration, and engage attendees on their phones throughout the event from a single system.”

From their smart phones, attendees will be able to obtain notifications from event organizers, manage their personal agenda and registration information, and provide real-time feedback. They will also profit from access to vendor and sponsor information, in addition to easy-to-read maps to find session rooms, local attractions, and hotels. The mobile conference platform comes built into Socious software at no extra cost. “We spoke with a lot of associations, users groups, and meeting planners. They overwhelmingly told us that they didn’t want meeting software that nickeled and dimed them for mobile add-ons or charged for multiple events. Our all-inclusive pricing reflects our view that our customers shouldn’t be charged extra to take advantage of our tools in a mobile format,” held Paul Schneider, Senior Vice President at Socious. The Socious conference software’s open architecture provides organizations a best-of-breed online and mobile event system that integrates with their back-end membership database or association management software. Both the Socious mobile community and mobile event apps run on all main smart phone platforms including iPhone, Android, PALM, and BlackBerry.

Popularity: 2%

2011 is going to be another year with updates and latest releases from Apple. All and miscellaneous are waiting breathless the ultimate statement on iPhone 5 and iPad2. Every day we are being bombarded by rumors, gossip, and disbelief around these two hot tech products. It appears that this works like a genuine marketing policy for Apple; to create buzz long time before launching, and then sell in enormous quantities. The technology that could restore the use of credit card is called Near Field Communication (NFC). iPhone 5 would be the most suitable product to use the NFC on. NFC is a wireless technology, comparable to Bluetooth and its basic role is to exchange data with other peripheral constituents by using the radio frequency. In plain English, once this scientific know-how is applied, you will be able to execute mobile payments, as you do with a credit card. This could be a huge victory, especially if Apple manages to decipher the security problems that NFC has. A superior solution could be to rely on applications that use higher-layer cryptographic protocols (e.g., SSL) to institute a secure channel.

Bloomberg publicized in the end of January that new generations of iPhone, iPod and iPad products would reportedly be equipped with NFC capability which would enable small-scale monetary transactions. Being the most waited and used product, chances are that iPhone5 will be the first one to bear the NFC flag. The license registered by Apple will have an application for payments, a biometric band that will permit the confirmation using fingerprints and a chip comparable to those that are being used on actual credit cards. We have adequate signs to say that this is going to be a ground-breaking improvement, not only for Apple, but for the whole world. More businesses, amongst which, Nokia and Sagem, have expressed their will to release mobile handsets with NFC technology, most probably, during 2012. There are companies that have already executed the NFC technology. The British branch of Orange partnered with a series of vendors to use this service. There are also current trials in other 15 countries in Europe(including France, UK, Germany, Austria, Poland, Norway, Turkey, Romania), Asia&Oceania, Latin America and Middle East.

Popularity: 2%

Smartphones have become very trendy over the last year and they are currently used by million of customers all around the world. Conversely, their esteem led to diverse cyber crime threats on the mobile security over the last period. Consequently, this year mobile security is prioritized by numerous security software companies that have already released or are in the process of releasing a mobile security app for several smartphone platforms. Most security companies are concerned about the future of mobile security and the negative impact cyber crimes could have on punters.The Android operating system has been praised for its frankness to Web developers as anyone can make a mobile app and distribute it to the world without having to undergo a extensive inquiry process. Still, this openness is what makes the Android platform susceptible to malware attacks. According to diverse security software experts, the Android platform is expected to be cyber crime and malware’s  next target.

Consequently, security software companies began analyzing how consumers openly install software in their smartphones as most punters are not worried about the threat of virus in their mobile gadgets. Mobile malware began a major issue in some parts of the world over the last period. Lookout Mobile, a mobile security software business that analyzes malware attacks on smartphones found a Trojan virus in re-packaged versions of several Android mobile apps.The detail that smartphones contain information that is not kept in a private computer makes this even more hazardous. Smart phones contain private data such as contacts’ phone numbers, photos, videos and a lot more. One can effortlessly mislay his cell phone. Consequently, security software companies have tried to develop several Android security apps that are meant to secure when customers misplace their handsets.

Popularity: 3%

One for the BlackBerry smartphone lover now, until now we’ve only been treated to renders of the unexpected BlackBerry Bold Touch phone, which is also known as the BlackBerry Dakota for GSM networks and the BlackBerry Montana for CDMA networks. The BlackBerry Bold Touch will be the first Bold gadget to became visible to play sporting a touch screen, and the smartphone. The BlackBerry Bold Touch holds a semblance to the BlackBerry Bold 9000 and actually sports a type of carbon fibre battery door, whilst some of the reported specs include a 5 megapixel camera, a 2.8 inch VGA touch screen, NFC, proximity sensor, accelerometer, 512 RAM and for some reason just 6.5GB of storage but microSD expansion up to 32GB.

Popularity: 12%

Ah the rumours of probably a mini iPhone simply isn’t adequate for the tech world, now we have the possibility of a mini iPad also, which actually may hit the mobile space sometime later this year if all pans out to be spot on. Apple is looking at pushing out an even smaller Apple iPad at 5.7 inches. Even though the derivation of the information doesn’t offer up any other details on this 6-inch Apple iPad they do actually claim to have had said information confirmed by 2 independent sources, unnamed of course. The new 6-inch iOS device could see release sometime in the middle of this year. Individually I can’t see Apple shoving out a slighter edition of their iPad that soon after the release of the Apple iPad 2, but stranger things have happened. Perhaps this new iPad if it materializes will be the Apple iPad 2.5, or even the Apple iPad 3 we’re heard rumour of in the past…

Popularity: 4%

The just accomplished Mobile World Congress was dominated by Android without doubt. A plethora of Android based smartphones were displayed at the expo since day one. The grand finale of the occasion was the Global Mobile Awards declaration. This function awards the producers of the greatest gadgets and technologies. This year’s award for the best GSM phone was won by Apple’s iPhone 4. This, at an event where Apple had practically no presence at all!  Talk about creating an impact! Sarcastically, HTC bagged the award for the best mobile handset maker. Looks like the judges were overwhelmed by HTC’s constancy in bringing not one, but a onslaught of great phones. This is unlike Apple which releases just one tremendous product a year.

The preeminent part about the iPhone 4 winning the award is the fact that the handset is close to a year old already and had tough antagonism to fend off in the form of more modern, better alacrity and faster handsets. According to the judges, the iPhone won the awards for its “great screen, sharp design, fantastic materials, and phenomenal ecosystem for app developers. In a tight race, the iPhone 4 built on the success of its predecessors to set the pace for smart phones.” With the iPhone 5 rumored to arrive in the next few months, let’s wait and watch if Apple manages to up the ante further and bag the award at the 2012 MWC as well!

Popularity: 4%