Pantech has produced its second Android smartphone, the IM-A630K “Crystal de Izar”, which comes not long after the Sirius IM-A600S – which is the company’s first mobile devise based on Google’s OS.

The Pantech A630K is designed specifically for women and comes with an interesting bottom – it looks like some sort of a crystal, and it can light up in different colors, apparently depending on what functions of the handset you’re using.

The phone’s other features include a 3.2 inch WVGA touchscreen display, Bluetooth, T-DMB TV tuner, a 5MP camera and a 4GB memory card preinstalled.

The Pantech A630K should be available in South Korea  from July. Like the Sirius, the new smartphone will receive an Android 2.2 Froyo update later this year.

Popularity: 7%

The Samsung Galaxy S is all set to make an appearance soon on Orange UK’s airwaves. The high end Android based mobile device is now listed in the carriers website in the coming soon section.

Sadly there are no specific details in relation to the exact launch but we shouldn’t imagine it being that far away. Although Orange UK isn’t the first carrier in the UK to have the Samsung Galaxy S on its network it does somehow suggest that there may be more options soon to be available to UK mobile consumers.

Coming with impressive 4 inch AMOLED touchscreen and also Android 2.1 it is expected that the new smartphone will turn out to be probably one of the most appealing phones out there. The Samsung Galaxy S also has a 5 megapixel auto focus camera and full HD for recording those videos and with the 1GHz processor you will experience fast internet connection. We will update you further with details of the launch when we hear them.

Popularity: 6%

Back in February, the FCC approved the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, and we assumed that the smartphone could hit the US via AT&T.

The SE Vivaz runs Symbian S60 5th Edition (aka Symbian^1), and even if you’re not too fond of this OS, you should know that the phone has a 8.1MP autofocus camera and HD (720p) video recording. Other features include a 360 x 640 pixels scratch-resistant touchscreen display, Wi-Fi, DLNA, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, Facebook and Twitter integration, 8GB memory card preinstalled, and a 720MHz processor with PowerVR SGX graphics. Oh and the Vivaz doesn’t come with signal reception issues, like some iPhone 4s.

AT&T hasn’t announced anything regarding the Sony Ericsson Vivaz yet but the phone will probably be launched soon.

Popularity: 11%

The HTC Wildfire is now available in the UK on the Vodafone network. Vodafone is the first network to offer the handset which is ready for ordering today.

Price wise you can pick one up for free on just a £20/month contract. This is a 24 month contract and you do get a decent amount of minutes, text and data as well. With this particular plan you get 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

The £25 and £30/month contracts also of course have the smartphone for free, but the more you pay for the plan, the more free minutes you get. Data however, stays restricted to 500MB.

The 18 month contracts are practically the same as the 24 month plans with the HTC Wildfire being free on the cheapest plan although the cheapest plan is £25/month rather than £20/month. Basically you add an extra £5/month to drop to an 18 month tariff.

Overall, some pretty good prices there although the data lacks a little. However, most consumers don’t use 500MB/month, so for those it wont be a problem.

Popularity: 5%

Something strange is going on apparently affecting some of you people that have pre ordered your new iPhone.

According to a recent article by Nilay Patel some people have reported receiving an email from Apple cancelling their pre order stating that their order couldn’t be authorised.

Ofcorse  this is cause for concern, although we cant say that we are that surprised as we are fully aware that AT&T had problems all last week dealing with the huge amount of pre orders.

The email simply states Dear Customer, we were unable to complete the authorization process for your iPhone order. As a result, we had to cancel your iPhone order. To complete the purchase of your iPhone, please visit an Apple Retail Store or an AT&T company owned retail store. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Needless to say this is causing a lot of frustration and the latest news states that now people are receiving cancellation emails from AT&T as well. Has this affected you have you had problems pre ordering your iPhone. Share your comments and opinions with us.

Popularity: 6%

Altek put on quite a show at CommunicAsia 2010, producing the Leo 14 megapixel concept phone in action. This handset features a 1/2.3 inch CCD and LED flash, plus a wide angle lens with 3x optical zoom. HD Video recording is also supported (at 30 fps) in the H.264 format and ISO 3200 sensitivity as well.

Altek Leo packs a 3.2 inch touchscreen TFT display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, a microSD card slot, WiFi 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. The device operates in GSM/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA networks, this smartphone runs Android 2.1 OS and it’ll support Android 2.2.

Popularity: 8%

The oldie but goodie handset  from Verizon namely HTC Touch Pro 2 has recently received a ROM update which will certainly make the device more user-friendly and it also brings some new features. With that being said, here are some of the items of the list of improvement/changes to this smartphone:

- improved word prediction and auto-correction
- improved the performance of VZ Navigator
- improved user interface
- support for GlobalAccess Connect
- new optional related to the compact QWERTY keyboard
- auto-complete in the “to” field when sending an email

Popularity: 6%

Throughout the course of Windows Phone 7′s paced, deliberate unveiling this year, Microsoft Corporation has been very clear on the fact that it doesn’t intend for Windows Mobile — the legacy platform we know today — to disappear, arguing that it’s got several years of life left in it for certain verticals. We’re starting to see that philosophy play out today with the introduction of Windows Embedded Handheld, which is essentially a warmed-over version of WinMo 6.5.3 with some key UI and enterprise-focused enhancements. Microsoft is specifically calling out an “extended support life-cycle” for the platform, a sign that these phones aren’t for the gotta-have-it crowd — instead, the company intends to push these things through corporate fleets where Windows Mobile has traditionally dominated, places where Windows Phone’s flashy stylings and locked-down underpinnings won’t have the same draw.

To that end, Motorola has announced the ES400 as Windows Embedded Handheld’s inaugural device, a rugged smartphone with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7627 core, resistive VGA touchscreen, fingerprint scanner, and a trick 3.5G radio that can be user-switched between GSM and CDMA. Naturally, you’re not going to see this on carrier shelves, but the ES400 is being pushed as a solid option for field sales and service, healthcare, and retail use — so if you’re working in any of those fields, you might have a harder time shaking off the last remnants of WinMo than you ever imagined. Follow the break for Microsoft’s press release.

Popularity: 6%

LG Electronics and iRiver unveiled new mobile device, namely LG LB4400. It has appears in late May 2010. The phone has brings multimedia capabilities. LG LB4400 handset packs music player, working with MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG and WAV format. The sound quality and interface of the player is produced by iRiver. It also supports Dolby Mobile and has a 3.5mm headphone jack with touch key playback control at bottom of the front panel. The LG LB4400 multimedia phone sports a 2.8-inch touchscreen TFT display with resolution of 240×400 pixels (WQVGA), a 3MP camera, Bluetooth v2.1, 8GB flash storage, a microSD card slot (up to 16GB), T-DMB, USB 2.0, and 900 mAh battery with providing up to 40 hours of battery life in music mode. Dimensions of LG LB4400 are 114×50×12.1 mm and weight 96g. It will be available in white, orange and brown color options.

Popularity: 6%

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is a cheaper and simpler alternative device to the existing high-end Xperia X10. This 104 gram Android handset  sports a 3″ 320 x 480 pixel touchscreen display, it comes with GPS, WiFi and 3.5G support, plus an FM radio and a microSD slot (with a 2GB card included in the standard sales package). There is a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back  of the phone  which is capable of video recording. Inside is a competitive 600MHz processor with 128MB of RAM which should cope with almost anything you throw at it, although it’s not as fast as the processors found in top-of-the-line Android mobile phones. There’s a decently large battery too, powering the X8 for up to 5 hours 40 minutes talktime on 3G.

Early adopters of the X8 will have to make do with Android 1.6 as an operating system, but this will be upgradable very soon to Android 2.1. Later shipments will have Android 2.1 preinstalled…. if this kind of thing is important to you then check before ordering. The software is highly expandable, as this is an Android phone and the Android Market is stuffed full of a very wide range of applications. In addition, Sony Ericsson have bundled the Xperia X8 with a trial version of their Wisepilot navigation system, although many users will prefer to use the new turn-by-turn navigation built into Google Maps.

Our experience with the bigger Xperia X10 is that it is a very nice smartphone, but it falls down a lot on call quality. Hopefully, Sony Ericsson’s second attempt at an Android handset will sort out some of those annoyances. This is a nice looking cell phone which is a lot more pocket-friendly than the X10, the price tag looks good too. Sony Ericsson say that the Xperia X8 should be available from Q3 onwards in White, Dark Blue/White, Aqua Blue/White, Pink/White and Silver/White colour combinations.

Popularity: 11%

Having a similar body design as X10 Mini / X8 but running a different soul inside, the new Sony Ericsson Yendo is the first full touch screen on the walkman cell phone series. The Yendo inherits the “four corner UI”, able to deliver good music as well as social networking integration with its 2.6-inch TFT touch screen. “With more than 140 million Walkman phones sold arround the world and touch screen technology increasingly gaining popularity, we have listened to consumers and provided them with the perfect combination – the first full touch Walkman phone, the Sony Ericsson Yendo™ with Walkman. Marrying the popular four corner UI debuted on the successful Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini, with our award winning Walkman phone experience, users now have a unique Communication Entertainment experience.” Said Jenny Maltesson, Global Product Marketing Manager, Sony Ericsson. The Sony Ericsson Yendo does not support 3G nd will work in GSM GPRS/EDGE Rx 850/1900 and GSM GPRS/EDGE Rx 900/1800 network. It will be released in selected markets from Q3 with many color options.

Sony Ericsson Yendo Specifications

* 2.6-inch TFT at 320 x 240 pixels
* Size: 93.5 x 52 x 15.8 mm
* Weight: 81 grams
* Phone memory: Up to 5MB
* 2.0 megapixel camera
* FM Radio
* 3.5 mm audio jack
* Bluetooth technology
* Micro USB connector

Popularity: 11%

Samsung is going to produce 3 more Android smartphones after the newly launched Galaxy S. The Galaxy Beam (I8520), Galaxy 3 (I5800), and Galaxy 5 (I5500) will be available in Europe and Asia in July. All 3 devices are running Android 2.1, featuring TouchWiz 3.0 user interface with widgets and iPhone like software icon list. The Samsung Galaxy Beam I8520 has a built in projector module so that you can share your video or make presentation anywhere. It also has an impressive 8 megapixel camera, HD video recording and a 3.7 inch Super AMOLED WVGA display. The Galaxy 3 (I5800) has a 3 megapixel camera, 3.2-inch TFT touch screen, 240 x 400 resolution, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD card slot and built in A-GPS / Bluetooth / WiFi. The Galaxy 5 (I5500) is not using the Samsung’s AMOLED / Super AMOLED touch screen, it comes with a smaller 2.8-inch TFT touch screen, 240 x 320 resolution, A-GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi. It does not have a 3.5 mm headphone jack though, will it get a place in the youth market without the headphone jack? The Galaxy 3 and Galaxy 5 will be available in the European and Asian markets in July and the Galaxy Beam will also launch in July for Singapore SAMSUNG lovers.

Popularity: 6%

Acer has just announced two brand new Android phones, the Acer beTouch E120 and Acer beTouch E130 models, with the latter being pictured immediately below. Both run Android 1.6 Donut and we learn that the E120 comes with a 2.8 inch QVGA touchscreen, while E130 relies on a 2.6 inch QVGA touch display and a QWERTY keyboard. Both new Acer devices feature a 3.2 megapixel camera, dualband 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth, plus FM radio, a microSD card slot, GPS, an accelerometer and digital compass. The usual suite of Google apps also makes the cut, but the main drawback of this handsets is certainly the processor, a 416MHz CPU. beTouch E120 will hit the market in mid-July 2010, while beTouch E130 will be launched in August 2010, for a yet unknown price.

Popularity: 7%

Samsung Galaxy Apollo was recently announced officially by Orange UK, with the carrier posting information bout the phone on its website. You can see the device pictured upper. Samsung Galaxy Apollo features 3G connectivity, a 13mm slim case, it runs Android and features a 3.2 inch touchscreen display. There’s also a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus on board, FM radio, an MP3 player, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB. The smartphone weighs 113 grams and supports microSD memory cards.

Popularity: 5%

What a way to announce a smartphone! AT&T officially announced the long-awaited and speculated upon HTC Aria cell phone, a mobile device based on Android 2.1 and the Sense UI, but they made it official through the hands-on video you can see at the end of the article. The device was unboxed in front of the camera by AT&T’s Android Product manager and we have to mention that the handset will be available starting June 20th online and in AT&T stores. Its specs list includes a 7 panel home page with widget support, a 3.2 inch WVGA TFT LCD display, a digital compass, proximity sensor, light sensor and GPS. HTC Aria uses a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, as well as an optical joystick and a case with super compact design. Under the hood you’ll find a Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz CPU 512MB ROM, 384MB RAM, a microSD card slot and a 1200mAh Li-Ion battery. Connectivity-wise you get HSPA, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP Stereo, WiFi 802.11 b/g, GPS/AGPS. The phone’s battery provides 6 hours of talk time and up to 15.5 days of standby functioning. Here’s the unboxing video for Aria:

Popularity: 5%