Latest Mobile Phone News

Sony Ericsson announced that its Xperia arc S and Xperia neo V are now available unlocked in the United States from Sony Store locations. The Xperia arc S runs Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) and is equipped with a 1.4GHz processor, an 8.1-megapixel camera, a 4.2-inch “Reality” display and support for 3D and 2D sweep panorama photography. The Xperia arc S is available in white, black, blue and silver for $529.99 without a contract. Sony Ericsson’s Xperia neo V also runs Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) and has a 3.7-inch display, a 5-megapixel camera and a front-facing camera for video chats. It is available in white, silver and blue for $349.99 unlocked. Both phones will be available from other retailers, such as Newegg, beginning in early December. As a side note, Sony Ericsson also recently announced that its 2011 family of Xperia-branded smartphones will all be updated to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) at a later date, so both the Xperia arc S and Xperia neo V should receive the update at some point.

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The World’s Largest Mobile Manufacturer from Finland Nokia Corp. has another successive net loss in the third quarter; although it was better than the earlier quarter and all the credit goes to low end mobile phones. After Apple and Samsung taking over the Smartphone market the other companies are struggling hard to push their line of smartphones sales. Nokia has been one the dominant companies and held the top spot in making mobile phones for more than a decade, but since two quarters the company has been falling down and down with sales. But this quarter was better than the last after the shares jumped over 8%, as results highlighted an increase in shipments of its cheaper feature phones owing to strong sales of dual-SIM handsets, which allow users to have multiple phone numbers. Nokia shipped 89.8 million feature phones in the quarter, up 8% from a year earlier.

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Panasonic’s line of Toughbook notebooks can handle a whole heap of abuse, and the company is now cleverly expanding into the tablet market with the same basic principles of durability and security. Panasonic on Monday unveiled its Toughpad family of Android-powered devices, with both 7 and 10-inch options. The first model, the Panasonic Toughpad A1, is a 10-inch tablet that features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage, FIPS 140-X compliance, optional LTE or WiMAX connectivity, GPS, a drop rating of 4 feet and 10 hours of battery life. Panasonic’s tablets will also be able to withstand a wide range of temperatures and are resistant to dust and water, in addition to sporting anti-reflective and anti-glare displays. The first Toughpad, the 10-inch A1, will go on sale starting in Spring of 2012 for $1,299, and the 7-inch Toughbook B1 will go on sale later in 2012.

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Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android, is likely to ease the fragmentation of the operating system, some device executives said on Thursday. Google unveiled Ice Cream Sandwich last month in the Galaxy Nexus, set to go on sale this month in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The new OS achieves much of what device makers have been trying to achieve by augmenting earlier Android releases on their own, which has created differences among versions on the market, according to some speakers on a panel at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco. Device makers and carriers have customized Android for their own purposes since it was introduced in 2007.

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HTC Corp. edged out Samsung Electronics Co. to become the largest smartphone vendor in the U.S., capitalizing on the Android platform’s popularity and a lull in demand for iPhones to overtake Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. A 10 percentage-point jump in share from a year earlier gave Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC 24 percent of the world’s largest smartphone market in the third quarter, ahead of Samsung’s 21 percent, Palo Alto, California-based researcher Canalys said in a statement yesterday. Apple fell to third at 20 percent while RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, had 9 percent. HTC, which made the world’s first phone using Google Inc.’s Android in 2008, benefited from strong relationships with U.S. carriers and made different models for each operator. Apple’s iPhone 4S and new devices from Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung may help the two global smartphone leaders gain share in the U.S. this quarter as HTC forecasts its first shipment decline in almost two years.

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