Alcatel cell phones go back to fashion roots

AFTER a year of suffering from revenue losses, the mobile phone joint venture of telecommunications equipment provider Alcatel and electronics giant TCL is back in full swing and has revamped its mobile phone business that is expected to result in the launch of new fashion phones in the next few months.

In particular, Alcatel and TCL announced its new branding strategy in the Philippines, simply called T&A, as well as the introduction of their holdings company TCT Communication Technology.

This will be followed by the launch of newly designed Alcatel phones, many of which would be co-branded with well-known fashion brands, the first of which is the French fashion magazine Elle.

T&A Country Manager Desmond Chow said the new branding strategy is expected to expand the Alcatel brand in the Philippines since it is largely popular as an entry-level to mid-level product.

Panasonic X500

Just got time to tell you about Panasonic's latest handset. The X500 uses that tried and tested sliding design favoured by all fashion handset manufacturers (it's the sincerest form of flattery, Siemens, honest). Panasonic does a good line in tiny handsets, and the X500 is no different, with credit card-like dimensions. Its major selling point seems to be the VGA camera and flash light for night time shooting. The handset's been designed to be turned sideways and held like a camera when taking pics (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Sony Ericsson, honest).

Inevitably, the red one's not available in the UK, but you can get the silver handset for free on contract from Phones4U.

Keep reading for a full list of specs.

Panasonic

65,536 colour TFT displayBuilt-in VGA digital camera with photo lightMultimedia messagingJava MIDP 2.010sec motion jpeg40-Polyphonic ring tonesSliding DesignWAP 2.0 browserDual-band Product specifications:System - GSM/GPRS Class8Frequency Range - 900/1800Dimensions (hxwxd) - 85x47x22.5mmVolume - 79ccWeight - 96gTalk Time* - Up to 7 hoursStandby time - Up to 200 hoursBattery time - 730mAh Li-ionFeatures: 65,536-colour TFT LCD screen, VGA camera with photo light, video capability (up to 10 seconds), 2 types of menu screen - scroll launcher or 9 launcher, MMS, SMS, Short video clips, Java MIDP2.0, Infrared, phonebook - 300 +SIM, Downloadable content, Quiet mode, WAP 2.0, calculator and currency converter, clock, alarm, vibration alert, scheduler + to do list, 10 pre-installed polyphonic ring tones, 2 pre-installed games

UNVEILED: O2 Xda Zinc by AsusTek received FCC approval

Three FCC approvals for AsusTek within less than one week, not too bad. Looks like AsusTek finally takes the Windows Mobile business serious and - for AsusTek even more important - the Taiwanese ODM got some interesting customers, namely Vodafone and O2.
After Vodafone's VDA IV and O2's Xda Graphite, now the O2 Xda Zinc received the FCC approval. The Xda Zinc is the Pocket PC Phone Edition, we've seen before already under the code name "Mars II".
Basically, the Xda Zinc seems to compete with HTC's Hermes (which is also available from O2 as Xda trion but from O2 Germany only) but the Zinc's specs are are slightly different with strengths and weaknesses. For instance it's a single band UMTS (without HSDPA) and triband GSM/GPRS device only but sporting W-LAN b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 as well.

New Xdas announced from O2

O2 has announced that it will be releasing an updated version of its Xda II later this year - the Xda IIs. The smartphone is to include a slide out QWERTY keyboard as well as the long-awaited 802.11b wireless connectivity.

Although it won't be available immediately, O2 has revealed that the handset will also feature BlackBerry push email service. O2 is suggesting that RIM's Connect software should be added to handsets at the start of next year (and presumably you'll be able to download the software for free if you've already forked out for the new handset).

Expect to see the updated phone over here in November for around 449. A further model, the Xda IIi, will follow the upgraded model. This will include a faster 520MHz Intel PXA270 processor and a 1.3-megapixel camera.

New handsets from Siemens

During the SK65 launch yesterday, the guys at Siemens spent a good deal of time insisting that the company is not about to get sold off or shut down. They did admit that things hadn't gone too well for them in the past year, though - what with software issues, handsets that were late to market, and (we're guessing) the disappointing standard of some of the phones, especially the SL55's chunkier SL65 upgrade. To reassure us of Siemens Mobile's rude health (number 2 in Europe, number 5 in the world), they announced that 15 new handsets would be heading our way between now and Christmas. So what can we expect? They weren't giving much away, but we know that there will be more slider phones (hopefully to rectify the SL65 chunkiness), a clamshell and at least two 3G handsets. Siemens wouldn't be drawn on whether a Wi-Fi handset is on the card, saying only that more announcements would be made at Cebit (so that's a yes then).