BenQ-Siemens E61

Alexs Bar, 2913 E Anaheim St, Long Beach, (562) 434-8292. Myspace.com/alexsbar. Thur: Vavak, Lakes, Briertone, Curt Phillips. Fri: Falling Idols, Long Beach Allday. Sat: The Spores, Arugula, The 1090 Club, DJ Cottonmouth. Sun: The Sex Pistols Experience Tribute Show.

The Avalon, 1735 N Vine St, Hollywood, (323) 467-4571. Avalonhollywood.com. Sat: Good Charlotte with the Pink Spiders. Mon: Band of Horses with Chad VanGaalen and Simon Dawes. Tue-Wed: DJ Shadow.

Boulevard Music, 4316 Sepulveda Bl, Culver City, (310) 398-2583. Boulevardmusic.com. Fri: Bruce Molsky. Sat: Pete Huttlinger.

Caf-Club Fais Do-Do, 5257 W Adams Bl, Culver City, (323) 954-8080.

Memory expansion on the KG 920 uses MiniSD

Engineered with a sturdy metallic silver frame that resembles every bit of a thoroughbred consumer digital camera, the KG 920 is literally a 5.0-megapixel camera that comes with phone-like functions. Fitted with a bright 2-inch 240 x 320 pixel QVGA screen, photo previewing is a decent experience – although a larger screen would have been much appreciated, especially for such a powerful camera. Found in a row along its left profile is an array of buttons that although vary in purpose, are mostly suited for the KG 920’s camera functions such as shutter release, zoom, flash (shared with MP3 short cut), timer selection and the odd volume control. On the flip side, we've got a miniSD card slot, dedicated headphone jack and its propriety power input jack. What makes the KG920 unique is how half its body is able to swivel on a hinge so both camera lens and LCD screen can face inwards for self-portraits. Unfortunately, for all its appeal and uniqueness, the KG 920’s joystick, keypad and menu button layout is not ideal.

LG Follows Carriers To iFollow

Instant Messaging specialist Followap has signed added another high profile customer to its list following the announcement that LG Mobile will use the company's IM solution in future handsets. With a customer list that already includes Vodafone, Microsoft's MSN, Hutchison's 3, Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and more, Followap is making great strides in the mobile instant messaging (IM) and presence market. The latest to join the list is LG Mobile which has selected Followap's mobile IM iFollow Client to be integrated into its latest 3G handset the LG U300. The LG U300 is designed specifically for the IM user in mind, featuring the first ever IM key which means that with one click, users can access their personal MSN Messenger community, and interact with their family and friends on the go.

BenQ P51 Pocket PC phone was vaporware after all

The reason is trivial: BenQ, that previously has purchased Siemens Mobile division from Siemens, is firing all German employees and closing all facilities in Germany.

What is the reason of closure? Obviously the market share of BenQ-Siemens mobile phones was falling rapidly and that was the reason. What was the reason of this fall of market share? On one hand one could suspect German workers, who take benefit of overly bureaucratic and too employer-hostile German social system, but we think that it was clearly mis-management on part of BenQ. Anyway: after Sierra Wireless, yet another (potential) vendor/maker of Windows Mobile phones goes away. All in all bad news for Windows Mobile camp!

Information from BenQ follows.

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BenQ Announces Discontinuation of Funding for its German BenQ Mobile Phone Subsidiary

To stem unsustainable losses at BenQ's mobile operations, BenQ Corporation's board of directors convened today and resolved to discontinue capital injection into BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co OHG, its German mobile phone subsidiary.

LG KG920

With the LG KG920, LG has seriously upped the ante in the UK camera phone market by delivering a model that can snap five megapixel images - at least a couple of megapixels up on its main rivals. The quality of the images the phone takes is superb too, especially on close-ups, delivering levels of colour and detail significantly beyond the shots its main rivals are capable of. Video capture is excellent, with the handset grabbing footage at 320x240 pixels at 30 frames a second. However, the phone's user interface is not very sophisticated and the control buttons on the front are tiny. It is also hard to get a decent grip on the phone and I found my fingers constantly drifting over the lens. The camera's auto focus system isn't especially reliable and there's no optical zoom as there is on the Nokia N93.

Samsung Launches Gracenote Functionality Range

Gracenote has announced an agreement with Samsung, a provider of mobile phones and telecom systems, to provide its Music ID and Playlist technologies to ease the management and transferring of music from the PC to a range of Samsung handsets, starting with the SGH-E500. The Samsung E500 with Gracenote functionality is available throughout Europe.

The handset is reportedly Samsung's to ship with Gracenote Music ID and Playlist technologies, which allow consumers who use the Samsung Mobile PC application to get content from the PC onto their mobile phone.

The Samsung Mobile PC application reportedly features a selection of ringtones, wallpapers and games, and now with the Gracenote technologies in place, consumers can also collect and manage music on their PC and ensure a simple transfer of their content to their Samsung phone with all the correct information.

Samsung SGH-X820 review

The Samsung P300 was both innovative and successful, but now Samsung has now gone a step further and taken the lead with the Samsung SGH-X820, which at 6.9 mm is the slimmest phone in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if other manufacturers go down this path and manage to spur Samsung on to even greater achievements. You cannot believe how thin the Samsung X820 is until you have held it. Next to the slim design, Samsung has managed to boost the X820 with a 2 Megapixel digital camera, with a maximum photo resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. I tried the Samsung SGH-X820 out for a while and will discuss its functions and characteristics in the following mobile phone review.