The i-mate Smartflip Review

I spent the last three weeks with an i-mate Smartflip Windows Mobile Smartphone. I am saying this because I am not usually the person to carry a Smartphone, rather having a Pocket PC Phone Edition with me. But the i-mate Smartflip is quite a looker, and functional.

It starts being a very thin (98.5 x 51.4 x 15.8mm) and light (99g with battery) handset in a clamshell form factor. It fits comfortably in the hand, and the keypad is easily accessible for one handed operation. The keypad is actually very interesting, being completely flush and made of a single piece, instead of having separate buttons.

The keypad comes with the standard keys you expect to find on a mobile phone (including answer and hangup), plus soft keys for access to contextual menu options, home and back keys.

Samsung's mega pixel camera phone slider

Must admit to not being too taken with Samsung's first mega pixel camera phone the SGH-D415. Although it has a brilliant screen and that ever so fashionable pull down flaps as pioneered by Siemens, it was short of a few features and its camera wasn't quite as good as it rivals.

The company is obviously listening as it has just launched the SGH-D500, an enhanced version of the D415 that rights a few of those wrongs. The handset, which is finished in black, features a mega pixel camera with an integrated flash and a 7xz digital zoom. Images it takes displayed on its 176x220 pixel TFT LCD unit in 262,000 colours.

Other features include Bluetooth, an MP3/AAC player and storage of 80MB - significantly more than rival handsets. There is however no storage card slot.

Sony Ericsson's quartet

Sony Ericsson has delivered a quartet of new mobiles aimed at very different market segments. With under 25s in mind the company has unveiled the S600, a kind of distant cousin of the S700, which majors on multimedia features. It has a superb screen, which can go widescreen for image viewing and more importantly gaming. It also features a 1.3 mega pixel camera and an MP3 player.

Also unveiled this week was Sony Ericsson's latest 3G handset. The K608 sports an upright design that the company claims is roughly the same size and weight as GPRS phones. It has a 1.3 mega pixel camera, a large 1.8inch 262k colour screen and push email facilities.

Sony Ericsson also debuted the Z520, a compact clamshell aimed at young women (you can read more about this on Shiny) and the entry-level J210.

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.

O2 delivers Windows PDA/smartphone

They really must be busy over at the Taiwanese HQ of phone manufacturer HTC. For in addition to T-Mobile confirming today it is going to ship HTC's MDA IV 3G Windows powered mobile, another network has announced that it is bringing that model's predecessor to the UK.

Already on sale in a number of guises including the MDA III (T-Mobile), the device will now be available to O2 subscribers as the XDA IIi.

The feature count stays the same though. So the XDA IIi boasts both GPRS and Wi-Fi, an Intel PXA272 processor that runs up to 520MHz, a 1.3 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth and much else.

The device runs on the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC, phone edition platform and offers all the Windows staples such Outlook, Pocket Explorer, Windows Media for audio and video and Messenger.

Samsung's hard disk phone to debut in UK very soon

It looked like it would be a close race to launch the first mobile phone with hard disk in the UK, but it appears now that the contest is over. Samsung has confirmed that its three Gigabyte Windows based SGH-i300 will be in the stores before Christmas - early November appears to be the likely time - well before Nokia's four Gig N91. I had a few minutes hands-on with the phone yesterday and have to say it is one impressive handset. Sure it is large and its chocolate bar design isn't exactly cutting edge, but it feels smaller and more comfortable to use than Nokia's hard disk phone the N91.

Accessing music via the fiddly Windows interface is a pain, but Samsung has incorporated a neat scroll wheel which significantly sped up finding and choosing the various tracks. The phone features the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, a 1.3 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth and of course Outlook and Pocket Explorer.

FCC approves Samsung SGH-i607

Looks like the hot little i320, but it's quad band and rumor is that it's coming to Cingular. Let's just hope they did something to improve battery life. The i320's life is horrible while using Bluetooth. I did get a comment on the i320 yesterday though... "This is the best you've sounded on one of those damn fancy phones in a while."

"Samsung i607 is Windows Mobile powered Smartphone, successor of the i320. It also features landscape QVGA display, global roaming including world 3G HSDPA data. i607 has full QWERTY keyboard and slot for microSD cards"

Now that this phone has FCC Approval there should be no hold up? Ask HP about the 6915, how long was it FCC approved before it was quietly launched?

Source : Phone Arena via Engadget Mobile