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Nokia announced last year that they’re working on new Nokia game phones equipped with N-Gage technology. There won’t be a new N-Gage phone, but their high-end models will include beefed-up N-Gage-like technology enabling them to play some pretty sophisticated games.

That was over a year ago, though, but now, thanks to a new patent approval and Nokia’s announcement of its new online gaming platform, some of Nokia’s plans are starting to take shape.

Is your Sony Ericsson worth $25,000? No? Well this one is.

It’s the new Sony Ericsson SO703i “Beauty Renaissance Collection”, all blinged up with $25,000’s worth of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies.

As you can see, the gems are, er, tastefully positioned to reveal the outline of TinkerBell from Disney’s Peter Pan (not entirely sure why!)

If you really want such a blinged up phone, you can buy your own Sony Ericsson SO703i with $112’s worth of Swarovski crystals (the $25,000 version’s not for sale) from March 23rd – but only in Japan.

[Source: Esato]

If you can’t wait to see the new Sony Ericsson W880i in the flesh, then maybe this promo video will keep you going until Sony Ericsson officially launch their new Walkman phone (which shouldn’t be long now).

Although not offering anything particularly innovative, the Sony Ericsson W880i exudes class, and is super-thin for those who love their phones on the slim side. This looks set to be the best-looking Walkman phone yet, and should be a huge hit for Sony Ericsson.

LG have announced the LG CAN*U mobile TV phones, each of which features of one of 10 designs by famous cartoonists and painters.

The phones themselves are fairly feature-laden: T-DMB mobile TV, 2.6″ screen, MP3 Bluetooth, camera, and even mobile banking facilities.

However, it’s the artwork on the phones’ covers that really set them apart, as is obvious from the fact that the press releases only show the back of the phones.

Samsung have announced the Samsung Card Phone II (or Samsung SPH-B6700 to give it its official name), a credit card-sized phone that somehow squeezes mobile TV into its diminutive proportions.

Building on the original Card Phone I, the Card Phone II isn’t the thinnest phone in the world, or even the thinnest in Samsung’s armour (both titles being held by the Samsung Ultra 5.9 U100 at just 5.9mm thin), but it is slimmer, lighter and stronger than its predecessor, and still the same size as a credit card, if not the same thickness (87mm x 54mm).

Apple’s eagerly-awaited iPhone might be coming to Europe equipped with 3G as early as January 2008. The iPhone is a glorious-looking mobile phone, but the lack of 3G seriously hampers its use.

What’s the point of having a glorious interface and easy-to-use web-browser if your data’s crawling along at EDGE speeds (200kbps if you’re lucky, with uploads not much more than dial-up speeds)?

According to AppleInsider, though, it seems Apple will be addressing these concerns with the release of the iPhone 2.0 which will feature 3G – and maybe even the super-fast HSDPA.

It seems every electronics company worth its salt is rumoured to be working on a new mobile phone these days. Hot on the heels from Apple’s iPhone announcement, and Google and Microsoft’s rumoured phones (the Switch and Zune phone, respectively), comes a rumour that Dell might be next to move into the mobile market.

The rumour comes from the fact that Dell have just head-hunted Ron Garriques, who’s resigned as Motorola’s Executive Vice President and President of the Company’s Mobile Devices business, and started work at Dell to run a newly formed unit focusing on consumer products.

These are leaked pics of a new successor to the Sony Ercisson M600i. Codenamed Lizzy, the M600i update still has no camera, worse luck, but may come with EDGE and Wi-Fi connectivity. The M600i was never a great success, largely because it had no camera, and wasn’t all that functional a smartphone – certainly, without Wi-Fi it can’t compete with most of today’s smartphones.

More details and pictures of the Sony Ericsson Lizzy after the jump.

After years of prototypes and hype, a brand new display technology was on display at 3GSM that looks set to revolutionise mobile phones. Polymer Vision were showing off their Readius, which is a gadget that features a foldable, rollable display.

As smartphones get ever smarter, their ease of use is still restrained by the fact that you just can’t see all that much on a screen that is at best just 3″ in size. The obvious way around this is to creat a screen that folds out, rolling up scroll-like when you want to put the mobile phone in your pocket, and unrolling it when you want to see its display.

This holy grail of technology has finally been demonstrated by Polymer Vision, who, not surprisingly, have won 3GSM’s Most Innovative Technology Award for their Readius eBook reader, which features just such a display. Not a mock-up, or restricted prototype that only works for 10 minutes – a genuine foldable display on a real working gadget.

Just watch the video, and you’ll realise that the mobile phone we know and love is going to be transformed beyond recognition next year.

Samsung have been very busy this week, both at 3GSM and in general. At 3GSM, we saw them show their new Ultra II range of smartphones, while outside of 3GSM land, they’ve been showing off this, the new Samsung SPH-M8100. What’s special about the M8100 is its support for WiMax, which is, for those who don’t know, a kind of super-Wi-Fi technology, featuring greater range and much faster data transfer rates than traditional Wi-Fi.

How much faster? How does 20Mbps while travelling in a car running at 60km/h sound?! Yes, that’s right, very impressive indeed!