Review: Nokia's Smart Looking 6233 Business Phone

The Nokia 6233 is the successor to the very popular 6230i. It retains the same classic bar form factor, but ups the ante in the specifications department. Sporting a 2 megapixel camera, a QVGA (320x240 pixel) resolution display, and stereo speakers, the Nokia 6233 is set to take the market by storm. It is a dual mode phone, featuring WCDMA/GSM operation, and tri-band GSM coverage (GSM 900/1800/1900MHz and WCDMA 2100MHz networks). The 6233 is capable of switching automatically between bands and modes. This review will be about the Nokia 6233's GSM capabilities, as I still have no access to 3G networks.

Physical Aspects

The 6233 is aimed at business users. There are no fancy designs, no swiveling keypads, nothing that stands out at all. It is designed to look serious, and with a casing made of stainless steel and soft rubber compound, the Nokia 6233 is definitely top quality.

Orange's latest SPV arrives

The SPVs have always been popular around the Tech Digest office as they are among the most compact smartphones to use Windows Mobile and actually make for surprisingly manageable web browsing. The latest, the SPV C600, is a very similar candy-bar style to its predecessors now with a 320 x 240 colour screen, as well as a 1.3 megapixel camera and 64mb internal memory. Not following the C550, it has opted away form music playback button and returns to a style more similar to the C500 but this time imbued with the latest Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. This means that applications load up a lot quicker and has a generally more handset friendly interface. Also improved over the C500 is the new joystick control system that has proved itself to be a much needed addition.

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The Orange SPV C600 has pretty much ticked all the boxes; but there's no escaping the fact that it's hard to make such a small unit very easily useable with internet browsing, emailing and so on.

Get Inked! Motorola and T-Mobile Introduce the MOTORAZR - Miami ...

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. and BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and T-Mobile announced today the upcoming nationwide availability of the MOTORAZR V3 - Miami Ink Collection, two hot new handsets featuring tattoo-inspired designs by Ami James, leading tattoo artist on TLC's hit television series "Miami Ink." Combining these 'tattoos' designed by the world-famous artist with the MOTORAZR's award-winning slender form and multimedia features, the MOTORAZR - Miami Ink Collection offers T-Mobile consumers a new twist on the world's best-selling mobile handset.

"From cool new materials to vibrant bursts of color, these new tattoo-etched phones let consumers express their individual style," said Jim Wicks, vice president and director, Consumer Experience Design, Motorola.

Moto reopening on Michigan Ave. to sell red Razr

Motorola Inc. is reopening its so-called pop-up location at 666 N. Michigan Ave. at 10 a.m. Friday to tout its newest product, a red Razr V3m, after shuttering the store following a nearly eight-week summer promotion with Verizon Wireless for its Q smartphone.

MOTO (RED) Chicago, this time operating in conjunction with U.S. Cellular Corp., will open for two weeks as the only location where the red Razr will be sold in the United States during that time.

The phone, part of a global (Product) RED campaign that raises funds to fight AIDS in Africa, will be sold to new and upgrading customers for $79.95 with a two-year contract, a $30 premium over the current gun-metal gray Razr that U.S. Cellular sells in its Chicago outlets. .

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).

Samsung SGH-Z400

Samsung is really warming to the slider design for its mobile phones. Following on from the success of the excellent D600 handset aimed at business users, the Z400 incorporates the same features in an even slimmer profile, but here's the kicker - it's also 3G.

This means there are two cameras: a two-megapixel lens concealed behind the slider design and another VGA unit facing the user for video calls.

The slider mechanism is an absolute gem, with a spring-loaded frictionless glide upon opening and then closing with a firm and decisive snap.

Like the D600, the Z400 can display Microsoft Office files on the 5.1cm 262k-colour screen. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, plain text, HTML and even PDFs either transferred from a PC or sent via an email attachment.