Latest Mobile Phone News

Apple delayed the launch of its iPhone 5 to whet its smartphone offering in order to counter the threat from the new breed of Androids like Samsung Galaxy S2 and HTC Sensation. However, it seems the delay has given its competitor Google sufficient time to prep its next version of Nexus phone- the Nexus 4G.  The arrival of Nexus 4G does not bode well for Apple. Currently Apple is lagging behind the Android breed of superphones like Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation and Motorola Atrix which arrived after the CES Las Vegas event. Apple’s current iPhone 4 looks anemic in terms of specifications when compared to these superphones. Thus, Apple has delayed the launch of iPhone 5 as the phone is in need of significant hardware changes in order to compete with these phones.

Popularity: 6%

Dualcore smartphones are the big mobile story of 2011 and the Samsung Galaxy SII is leading the charge, adding a 1GHz dualcore processor to its slick Android 2.3 OS. Not simply quick, the Galaxy SII is also beautiful, with a better-than-AMOLED. 4.3-inch screen and a home screen that automatically locates your most-used apps and places them at your firgertips in an easy to navigate, magazine-like format. There’s an eight-meg camera capable of shooting 1080p video on board and A-grade connectivity including HSDPA at up to 21Mbps, N Wi-Fi, USB and AllShare, Samsung’s DLNA streaming function.

Popularity: 40%

The elder statesman of our test, having been released way back in june 2010. the iPhone 4′s design remains unsurpassed, with its engineered glass front, metal edges anc almost excessively high-res screen still class-leading. Very effective multi-touch and Apple’s user-friendly iOS interface make it a breeze to navigate, with customisable home screens and folders for filing away all the games and apps downloaded from the App Store – still the finest and most well-stocked software source. At 3.7 inches the 960×640 screen is still the perfect size, in our judgement. Text is pin-sharp and colours bold, with the brightest whites and inkiest blacks on test. The iPhone 4 is being overtaken in spec terms by new dualcore Android phones but the 1GHz Apple A4 processor remains plenty quick.

Web pages load at speed and there’s seldom any appreciable lag. The upgrade to iOS 4.3 has added Personal Hotspot capability for tethering up to five devices over Wi-Fi, USB or Bluetooth. It connects smoothly but you need a pricey tethering account; currently Three and O2 are the only UK networks not to charge extra for it. Also included is AirPlay, allowing you to stream video, music and pictures to compatible docks or Apple TV. It’s a breeze to set up and works very well, though the list of compatible devices is considerably shorter than your arm. Show a little restraint and you’ll eke well over a day’s battery life. With 16GB and 32GB storage options, excellent sound and video quality and a camera that’s still as good as any you’ll find on a smartphone – the Nokia’s is just a smidgeon better, but no more – the iPhone 4 remains the best smartphone you can get. Some will resent the way it lies you to iTunes but to be honest, we can live with that.

Popularity: 5%

Windows Phone 7 could have improved on the WinMo of old simply by being usable by humans and not designed by a Joker-like sadist. It actually goes far further than that, being a lot of fun to use whilst retaining WinMo’s power. The tiled, fully-sustomisable home screen looks fantastic on the Venue Pro’s 41-inch AMOLED touchscreen. Pull it upwards and you reveal a full, if cramped. QWERTY keyboard. Live hubs, including People, Games. Pictures, Music and Video, Office and Market Place provide plenty of content, though without folders it can become cluttered. Enter Windows Live details and the Venue Pro automatically syncs with your Xbox Live account, allowing your avatar to roam about the homescreen. There’s a good selection of games available, many of them on a free trial basis.

Rumours of the Microsoft June’s demise abound, but it’s still alive and well in WP7 phones. PC users will need Zimc software to transfer media, whereas Mac users have the significantly less confusing Windows Phone 7 Connector. On a related note, the speaker is very bud and sound quality very good. The 1CHz processor is swift and the AMOLED screen crisper than ihe E7S. But the five-meg stills are disappointing, while the 720p video has a poor refresh rate, appearing blurred and marred by noise. There’s no doubt that Windows Phone 7 has the potential to pose a ihreat to Apple and Android. Office lets you view, modify and even create Excel, Powerpoint and Word docs and yes, you can cut and paste now. Dell‘s chunky hardware is perhaps not the best showcase for it, and third-party apps remain in comparatively short supply, but it’s still a very smart system.

Popularity: 4%

Following the announcement that Nokia will be using Windows Phone 7 within a year, the E7 should be among its last Symbian-powered phones. Don’t get too emotional, now…

This handset combines all of Nokia’s current strengths and weaknesses. Made from anodised aluminium, it’s a well-constructed, chunky slider with a full QWERTY. Those elements have a reassuringly old-fashioned feel to them. Giving less of a warm, nostalgic glow are a 680MHz processor that’s noticeably slower than rivals, giving sluggish multi-touch, and an operating system that feels archaic next to Android, iOS or WP7. Symbian is not a pleasure to use, and the range of apps at the Ovi Store remains of lower quality and quantity than at Android Market or the Apple App Store.

The four-inch screen’s resolution is only 640×360, so movies lack the detail of the Incredible S or iPhone 4. Being AMOLED, it does produce excellent contrast areas and off-angle viewing, however. The E7 does have one killer feature and that is its eight-meg/720p camera. Stills are excellent, and you can tweak white balance, sharpness. ISO and contrast. There’s also an LED flash. The HD video capture is smooth with natural colours, too. I Iowever with its other deficiencies, including a battery that needs charging every night, the E7 is hard to recommend to anyone other than die-hard Nokia fans.

Popularity: 15%

Next off HTC’s conveyor belt of phones that sound like superheroes is the Incredible, a Froyo-powered smartphone – an update to Gingerbread is coming soon – that sports a sizeable four-inch, 800×480 LCD screen. We must be getting used to slightly larger smartphones because despite the big screen it never feels oversized. However, its resolution is lower than the iPhone’s. blacks and whites aren’t as true as on that or the E7, colours are a touch over-saturated and reflections make it tricky to view in direct sun. That’s where the niggles run out, though. HTC’s Sense interface, including Friend Stream which aggregates updates across all your social networking platforms, makes the Incredible S effortless to use, helped by the lGHz Snapdragon processor. It’s every bit as slick as ihe iPhone 4 and leaves the E7 and Bold for dead.

There’s no iTunes Store, but Amazon’s MP3 Store makes for a very fine alternative, and Android Market, though lagging behind the App Store, is far better than it used to be in terms of quantity of good gear. It still sucks to use. mind you. The music player is again no iPod, but it’s functional, with a useful “find video” link to YouTube. The eight-meg stills are among Android’s best yet, though not as good as the Neo. E7 or iPhone. The dual-LED flash is prone to burning out detail. The 720p video footage just doesn’t look HD quality: next 10 the Nokia and iPhone it appears soft and blocky. With ?1 battery lasting into the second day, a big screen and Android’s intuitive interface, the Incredible S is another great 11TC Android handset. However, despite coming out almost a year after the iPhone 4, it still trails just behind it.

Popularity: 6%

Not a big change from the Xperia X10 in many ways, the Neo does benefit from being one of the first with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It also has an unusually good camera for a smartphone, as Sony Ericsson draws on Sony’s camera expertise again. The bright, sharp, 5.7-inch, 854×480, multi-touch “Reality Display” – can’t anyone just call a screen a screen these days? – is impressive. Colours lack the punch and contrast of AMOLED and resolution is a tad below the iPhone, but poor-light visibility is good. Battery life is good for such a small phone – it’s just 13mm deep -but struggles to reach a second day. The reskinned Android 2.3 is packed with cool features. You can pinch the screen for an overview of open widgets and drag items on lop of one another to create folders, iOS style.

Social networking widget Timescape displays your friends’ updates as cards that you can flick through, in a way that might be described as gimmicky by some. Powered by a 1GHz processor, the Neo feels quick and pleasingly responsive, if not as fast as the HTC Incredible S or iPhone 4. The Neo comes with an eight-megapixel camera. That’s the same on paper as the HTC Incredible S, but with a scaled down version of Sony’s Exmor R sensor aboard stills are notably better. The iPhone and N8 offer generally comparable results, but the Neo is betler in low light. The 72op video capture is also good, being colourful and smooth, though again not as sharp or detailed es the Apple or Nokia. You can output it to your TV via HDMI or stream it easily over Wi-Fi, thanks to DLNA support. This isn’t the most luxurious of phones, but the latest version of Android and excellent photos make the Neo good value for money.

Popularity: 61%

After blowing us away at CES the Motorola Atrix gained the coveted top spot in 7~3′s Hot 100. First and foremost it’s a powerful, dualcore smartphone. Add a series of docks, however, and it becomes a multimedia hub or even a 11.6-inch laptop. You can also “transform” it into an alarm clock, but maybe that’s not quite so cool. Solid and well built, the Atrix runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) and exudes a restrained air of competence and power, a bit like a top-class bodyguard. It dresses all in black like one, too. The four-inch. 960×540 touchscreen is responsive, bright, with bold colours. There’s less fine detail than on the iPhone 4, but the slightly large’ size and very pure whites do go some way towards making up for that. The dualcore processor means it never feels slow.

You can quickly swap between open browser windows, maps, games and video playback without it batting an eyelid. At the moment there aren’t many games or apps that make the most of the extra processing oomph, but that should change. Another plus is Motorola’s Motoblur, which adds very neat integration with your social networks, as well as some handy apps Dock the Atrix in the Lapdock or HCMI-connected Multimedia Dock, select the Webtop mode and things get seriously next-gen.On the bigger screen, app shortcuts are arranged along the bottom. You can also add bookma-ks or web apps; settings are accessed in the top corner. If you prefer something more familiar, Mobile View displays a mini version of the Atrix’s home screen.

There, you can click any app as normal and use phone features including calls – a pop-up box indicates an incoming call and you get decent call quality through the mic and speaker – contacts and mail It’s easy enough, even if it’s unsurprisingly not as slick as a proper laptop OS. You can read and edit email attachments using Quick Office, access web-based apps such as Google Docs and Sugar Sync and if your business uses Citrix, you can remotely access a fuII Windows desktop, so you can open and use PowerPoint and Word documents – a very simple yet powerful feature. The docks also give you a full-screen Firefox browser. This works a treat on both our 42-inch TV and Moto’s 11.6-inch Lapdock. s:reaming T3 com. YouTuhe and BBC iPlayor at speed over the N Wi-Fi. Motorola’s slick Entertainment Centre also makes a good fist of showcasing your phone’s media -files.

Popularity: 6%

It was touch-and-go for a time, but the touch-screen interface has finally become mainstream. In the past it was relatively tough to round up 10 good touch-screen products. These days, high-quality touch-screen interfaces have made their way into PCs, tablets, phones, PMPs, digital cameras, and a host of other devices.

The introduction of the original iPhone back in 2007 sparked a touch-screen revolution in the smartphone space. With its gorgeous 3.5-inch Multi-Touch screen with support for pinch and zoom, well-designed, finger-friendly interface, and top-notch mobile Web experience, the iPhone served as a prime example of the potential of the keyboard-free phone.

After that, every major manufacturer took its own stab at the touch-screen smart-phone. Some succeeded, and some, well, not so much. RIM’s first touch-screen handset, the BlackBerry Storm, for example, was panned in our original review for a buggy, imprecise touch interface that was difficult to use. It took a major firmware upgrade six months later for us to recommend the Storm.

Four years later, though, there’s no shortage of innovative, easy-to-use touchscreen smartphones. In fact, each of the major U.S. carriers offers a number of handsets that ace the touch-screen interface. If you’re looking for a phone with a touch screen and you’re willing to say farewell to the physical keyboard for good, look no further than our10 favorite touch-screen phones

AT&T

Apple iPhone 4. Apple’s iPhone 4 adds a gorgeous screen, a terrific camera, and a faster processor to add to the already-awesome iPhone app experience, but voice calling still isn’t this phone’s priority.

HTC Inspire 4G. The HTC Inspire 4G, AT&T’s premiere Android phone Cat least for now) can hold its own against the iPhone 4 and other top smartphones.

Motorola Atrix 4G. Motorola’s Atrix 4G, the unique bleeding-edge superphone that can transform itself into a PC, shows how we’ll likely be using our mobile devices in the year 2020. But to get a taste of the future, you’ll have to pay, and deal with some bugs along the way.

SPRINT

HTC EVO 4G. If you live online, the EVO offers a big, beautiful, and powerful window to the world. The first WiMAX phone in the U.S. is a terrific platform for streaming media and Web browsing, and it gets your laptop online with Sprint’s 4G network.

LG Optimus S. The Optimus S is the best budget Android phone we’ve seen, a well-tuned, feature-packed touch-screen slab with   ^ all of the functionality most consumers and small business p users need.

T-MOBILE

T-Mobile myTouch 4G. The T-Mobile myTouch 4G combines a classy body with a big, beautiful touch screen and the latest software to offer the most you can get from Android today.

Samsung Galaxy S 4G. The Samsung Galaxy S 4G, with its faster data connection, refreshed styling, and Android 2.2 OS, is a stellar perform- k er that doubles as a great laptop modem.

VERIZON WIRELESS

HTC Thunderbolt. The HTC Thunderbolt, the first 4G LTE smartphone for Verizon Wireless, has the fastest Web speeds we’ve ever seen, but be prepared to carry an extra battery.

Motorola Droid X. Motorola Droid X takes the crown for the most powerful Android smartphone away from the HTC Droid Incredible.   L The huge 4.3-inch, 854-by-480 screen makes maneuvering * the phone’s excellent interface with your finger a breeze.

VERIZON WIRELESS

Apple iPhone 4. Our lab tests show that Verizon’s iPhone 4 is just as good as the popular AT&T model, if not slightly better. If you’ve been lusting for an iPhone, but AT&T’s network coverage doesn’t work for you, the Verizon iPhone will be your savior. But if you didn’t want an iPhone before, there’s nothing new here to change your mind.

Popularity: 4%

April was a busy month for HTC, announcing no less than seven new devices for the South African market. Apart from the Sensation superphone (featured on p5) the Taiwanese manufacturer released the HTC Flyer tablet, two Facebook integrated smartphones and three new smartphones. All of which will be on the shelves in the next month.

HTC Flyer

The HTC Flyer is of course the Taiwanese company’s first foray into the tablet market. This 7″ tablet runs HTC’s Sense interface on top of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread, not Google’s 3.0 Honeycomb for tablets) and also includes HTC’s unique Scribe Technology. Scribe basically allows you to write on-screen with a special pen and either share your creations online or save it for reference. For the brief period that we played with the device it impressed with its speed thanks to the 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, while the new 3D interface of the Sense skin looks very smart.

Facebook on ChaCha and Salsa

Social network junkies are going to adore the ChaCha and Salsa, both coming with an integrated Facebook button. Press the button and you have access to the key functions of the Facebook services that are integrated throughout the HTC Sense experience, including updating your status and sharing your location or photos. Both devices feature Android’s latest Gingerbread 2.3.3 version, with the Salsa sporting a 3.4″, 480 x 320 resolution touch display. It was rather the ChaCha that grabbed our attention with its integrated QWERTY keyboard, slanted body and 2.6″ (480 x 320) screen. It is all the new Black-Berry Bold 9780 should have been and we got the impression that if the ChaCha featured services such as BBM and BIS it would have been really tough times for RIM.

Smart, Smarter, Smartest

Finally HTC introduced three updated models of previous HTC smartphones. The Wildfire gets improved in the form of the budget conscious Wildfire S, HTC’s smallest phones ever. Inspired by the HTC Legend smartphone’s aluminium design, the HTC Desire S boasts Qualcomm’s new 1 GHz Snapdragon MSM8255 processor and a 3.7″ (480 x 800 pixels) Gorilla Glass display and Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but unfortunately it does not include the new HTC Sense interface as found on the premium Sensation. The Incredible S, with its special contoured back, boasts the same processor as the Desire S and also some very impressive multimedia capabilities, such as surround sound, an eight megapixel camera, a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera and 720p video recording.

Popularity: 7%

Garmin recently unleashed a brand new range of sleek GPS devices. The Garmin nuvi 3790 LT, also known not-so-humbly as the ‘Masterpiece’, stands out from the rest. Being just 8,7 mm thick the Masterpiece is the thinnest GPS available and can be easily confused with one of Apple’s smartphones. The front of the device is almost completely taken up by a full glass 4.3″ multi-touch display, sporting an impressive 800 x 480 pixel resolution. For the first time a Garmin device supports dual-orientation capabilities, meaning you can use it either horizontally or vertically, while also featuring multiple touch gestures, such as sliding, tapping and pinching to zoom in and out.

Excellent features

The Masterpiece aims to revolutionise your navigation experience with its slew of new features, of which the full voice-control impressed us the most. Not counting the mounting of the device, users can literally now set routes and follow them successfully without ever touching the GPS. The nuvi 3790 LT is activated by speaking a customisable ‘wake-up’ command, with the default being “voice command”. Users are then able to choose between a number of different options such as, “Find by Name”, “Find Address”, “Find Intersection” and so forth. After that users simply respond to the GPS’s prompts, with it asking you to name the town, street and house number where you’d like to go, for example. While no voice system is going to be perfect, we were genuinely amazed at the accuracy of the nuvi, working more or less without fault.

Integrated traffic

The nuvi 3790 LT also supports hands-free Bluetooth calling, allowing you to pair your phone to the device very easily. One of the best things about the Masterpiece is that it’s also equipped with an integrated traffic receiver and sports subscription-free Lifetime Traffic updates (for the i ifetime of the device). This allows drivers to receive up to date traffic i nformation on their current route, with the Garmin indicating how long your journey may be delayed, and suggesting alternate routes if available.

Conclusion

The Garmin nuvi 3790 LT truly is a masterpiece as far as in-car GPSs are concerned, sporting all the features you need, all the features you could want, and even those you never thought you’d need. It’s available for a recommended R4315.

Popularity: 3%

This app and hardware add-on for iPhone and iPod touch is an incredibly easy-to-set-up universal remote for all your home theater components. It also provides a better way to navigate and discover content you’ll actually want to watch. While it’s not your typical standalone universal remote, the Peel wins our Editors’ Choice. The Peel consists of three pieces: a mobile app for the iPhone and iPod touch (with Android and iPad versions coming soon); a 10-foot black cable that plugs into a power outlet and into your Wi-Fi router’s Ethernet port; and the Peel Fruit, a plastic, pear-shaped infrared blaster, powered by a C-size battery, that sends the Peel’s commands to your home-theater components.

The Peel app has a couple of cool features that don’t rely on any Peel hardware. Tell it the kinds of shows you like to watch, and mark shows as your favorites, or cut them so they’re never shown to you. As you watch TV, your recommendations get better and better thanks to Peel’s algorithm. With the Peel Universal Control, the app becomes even better. Find programming you want to watch, such as a basketball game, and a Watch on TV button shows up. Tap the button, and since the Peel knows your channel lineup, it flips straight to the game. Unfortunately, the Peel Universal Control won’t let you throw all your other remotes away—for some functions, it’s just not capable enough. But what it lacks in power, it makes up for in convenience—it’s incredibly easy to set up and intuitive to use, and once you’ve personalized it a bit, it’s an excellent way to find stuff to watch.

Popularity: 6%

Microsoft has implemented strict minimum hardware requirements on anyone manufacturing devices on which Windows Phone 7 (WP7) will run. The most important of these is that a 1 GHZ processor (or better) must be present. This ensures the phones are speedy and reports of a lagging Windows 7 experience do not surface, which is definitely true of the HTC Mozart, a phone swift when browsing pictures and opening apps. To differentiate the Mozart from a “generic” WP7 device tag, HTC paid a lot of attention to the musical qualities of the phone (Mozart, get it?). Included is SRS WOW HD (via the Sound Enhancer app) for clearer and more expansive audio quality. Also included are an eight megapixel camera and 720p video recording, so multimedia on this phone is really strong.

WP7, launched at the end of last year, departs from the PC-like feel of Windows 6.5 and looks uniformly cool thanks to a design conscious interface. You have your Start screen that is populated by “tiles”, which can be anything from links to your SMSs, Internet Explorer, different mail accounts or certain apps. Slide the screen and you have all your different apps stacked beneath each other in one long list. Any one of these can be moved to the main Start screen for easy access and become one of the moveable tiles.
Despite looking the part, Windows Phone feels behind the rest of the OS pack (bar Symbian). Which it is, seeing that Android for example has had three years to progress through the birth pains and upgrades WP7 still need to grapple with. WP7 is currently very bad with multi-tasking, has few apps in Windows Marketplace and delivered problems typically associated with a new OS. We also hated the fact that you can’t simply drag and drop files to the phone, having to use Zune media player to sync.

Popularity: 5%

HTC has unveiled what looks to be the current leader of the smartphone pack here in SA, the HTC Sensation. The Taiwanese manufacturer calls the Sensation a superphone due to Qualcomm’s 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon MSM8260 processor, which not only enables a better all-round processing performance, but also gives the gadget a graphical boost. The Sensation operates on Google’s new Android 2.3 mobile OS, along with HTC’s latest Sense skin, and can record full HD video in 1080p resolution. More HTC on p20.

Popularity: 5%

One of our favorite smartphones from 2010 was the HTC Droid Incredible. HTC unveiled its successor, the HTC Incredible S, at Mobile World Congress 2011 and it’s finally made its way to the States and back to Verizon Wireless as the HTC Droid Incredible 2. Available now for $199.99 with a two-year contract, the Android device has some large shoes to fill and is facing a lot more competition this time around. Is it up to the task? The answer is yes and no. The HTC Droid Incredible 2 looks pretty plain, largely because the controls beneath the display aren’t visible when the phone is turned off or in standby mode. It may not be very striking, but there’s also a beauty in its clean and minimalistic look. Plus, that’s not to say that the Droid Incredible 2 is completely boring. If you flip the phone over, you’ll see that the back features a topographic design, much like on the HTC Droid Incredible.

Popularity: 5%