Nokia's new 9300 smartphone review

Nokia has taken its Communicator brick 9500 smart phone shed a bit of weight and size, and re-packaged it as the 9300 - a smartphone for busy professionals. It keeps some of the 9500's core features such as its excellent QWERTY keyboard and its high contrast wide screen.

What's good? It is arguably the first pocketable smartphone (it'll just about squeeze in) with a decent-ish QWERTY keyboard. Slap it flat on a desk and you can not only thumb type you can also speed things up by using a finger too. The phone also boasts a huge number of features including Blackberry push-mail, Opera's superb web browser and a Real player for replaying video and MP3 audio. It is also compatible with many Microsoft Office files formats (Word etc) and is compatible with VPNs.

What's bad? There's no camera, which although might not be top of the busy execs wants lists would still have been a decent touch.

First Impressions of Samsung's i320 Smartphone

I've been less than happy with my i-mate SP5m for a while now. It's thick, it's slow, the joystick is fragile beyond belief, and it just doesn't feel that good in your hand. Certainly not as nice as the HTC Typhoon did. So I've been looking closely at all the different QWERTY smartphone devices because I wanted to increase my mobile messaging from just reading and the odd reply to more full on email access. My decision was made considerably easier during the recent Mobius Boston event as we were all given a brand new Samsung SGH-i320 Smartphone. I've been using this phone for almost a week now and I have to say that Samsung did a really nice job on this phone with one exception: battery life. The size of the phone is simply incredible, and the extras that Samsung baked into the OS are really well thought out.

Motorola super slim RAZR phone

In terms of iconic phone designs, Motorola certainly leads the way and it looks like the company has just done it again with the release of the V3 RAZR.

The clamshell phone is incredibly slim - just 14mm - which is about a third of the depth of rival phones like the Sharp GX30 and Motorola V600. It is also very slight weighing in at a very pocket-friendly 95g.

Motorola has also pulled off some pretty neat tricks with the keypad which features illuminated keys sitting flush on the casing. Amazingly, the keys are incredibly easy to use.

The internal 2.2-inch TFT screen has support for 260k colours, and the external display is also in colour.

Motorola has managed to squeeze in a VGA camera as well as Class 1 Bluetooth technology.

Samsung D900 aka Black Carbon Hands On

We got to see the pre-release box and final version of the Samsung D900, the Black Carbon, which Samsung is selling solely through their own website. Part of the Ultra series - T-Mobile Samsung Trace is another Ultra model - the D900 is an extremely slim slider with 3-megapixel camera and a unique UI designed in conjunction with Adobe. The Samsung folks didn't mention a timeframe, but it should be hitting our shores very soon for about $350-400. Like the Trace, the D900 is extremely thin and designed with high-speed Internet and some unique features including uGo, which changes the background image to a local landmark depending on your roaming country (it works better in Europe, obviously) and uTrace which discreetly sends you an SMS if someone ganks your phone and puts in their own SIM card.

Nokia unveils 6600 replacement

In spite of its pug ugly design and dull grey finish Nokia's 6600 has gone on to become one of the most successful smartphones so far.

Well the good news is that its replacement - the 6670 - has all its functionality of the 6600, plus a few extra features yet is wrapped in a casing that's a slightly smaller and thicker version of the gorgeous 7610.

Like the 6600 the 6670 is aimed ostensibly at the corporate market - but just like its predecessor there ought to be plenty of consumers takers too.

The 6670 runs the Symbian operating system with the Series 60 interface. It has a comprehensive selection of e-mail facilities including the ability to read most attachments. It also offers personal information management apps and its web browser is compatible with PDF files.