Mobile Tech Bloggers…

Mobile Mentalism 2.0

Mmmm, check out the shiny Web 2.0 goodness! This sideblog will feature some quick posts to interesting items that I don't have time to blog about in-depth. Which means it gets to be updated very often, so keep an eye on it for random mobile musings.

5 megapixel Motorola Zine ZN5 to be launched tomorrow?

Motorola has been working on a 5 megapixel camera phone in collaboration with Kodak for what seems like years. Finally, the partnership might be about to bear fruit with the launch of the new Motorola Zine ZN5 camera phone at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas tomorrow.

The Zine will be the first phone released since Motorola split itself in two in an attempt to stop the company's mobile phone division slipping even further into the red. This won't make the Zine any good, though, as it still comes from a company whose last innovation was to paint the RAZR pink and sell it as a new phone!

More pics and derision after the jump.

New Pantech concept phones for 2010

Concept phones are great. They're not intended to be full production models, but rather give a sense of what can be achieved when designers are freed from the constraints that commercial mobile phones must operate in. You know, things like style, usability, cost, and, perhaps most important of all, the laws of physics!

Korean manufacturer Pantech is particularly fond of its concept phones, dishing out several new designs each year. Although none come to fruition, it's interesting to see the designs nonetheless, and it at least points to teh direction that mobile phones may take in the years to come.

The concept phones shown here have all been designed from students of various Korean Universities, in response to a challenge by Pantech to design a mobile phone for 2010. The one above is called the Wavy Stream, and looks the least conventional of the set.

Read on to see the other four concept phones designed for Pantech.

Samsung releases its own iPhone clone

Samsung have released a new touchscreen phone that seems strangely familiar. The new Samsung AnyCall Haptic is a sleek looking device with a huge 3.2" touchscreen that features a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio for optimal multimedia viewing. It also features a nifty new user interface as you can see from the pics, but it all looks, well...like an iPhone!

Motorola splits in two, Chinese competitors move in

Motorola has split itself two, separating its loss-making mobile phone manufacturing division from its highly profitable broadband and mobility solutions division. Motorola really had no choice, as its weak mobile phone division was dragging the company down, despite its enterprise mobility solutions division reporting record profits of $1.2 billion in the most recent quarter, a jump of 43%.

Motorola will still be selling mobile phones. However, its focus will now obviously be on its more profitable division, leaving Nokia and Samsung free to carve up the US as the company's mobile phones division simply cannot compete effectively.

LG-KF510, a designer phone that works

LG have launched their new LG-KF510, a designer phone that packs in some pretty top rate features. The features themselves aren't novel - all phones come with MP3 players, digital cameras, and the life these days - but what the LG-KF510 does is to provide high performing versions of such features in an attractive handset.

For example, the digital camera isn't just a 3 megapixel camera; it's a 3 megapixel camera with power flash and 1 second response time, meaning you can actually take decent photos in the gloom, as well as taking photos the second you see something interesting happening.

Samsung reinvents the camera phone

It seems camera phones are about to get a whole lot better, at least if Samsung has any say in the matter. What you see here is the company's latest technological miracle: an 8 megapixel CMOS sensor designed exclusively for camera phones. As you can see, it's pretty small - just 28mm x 15.3mm x 8.5mm - but most impressive is the functionality it provides. Not only does it come with 8 megapixels, it also offers ISO settings up to 1600, which means pics taken in low light conditions will look much better.

There also anti-shake technology built-in, face recognition, a 1cm macro, and Samsung's very own "Smile shutter" system, which detects smiles, and automatically takes a photo when everyone is smiling! Not entirely sure why you'd want a photo album filled with grinning idiots, but at least it beats a set of gurning ghouls, which my Facebook photos seem to consist of!

The new Samsung CMOS will begin production in the third quarter of this year, so expect to see 8 megapixel camera phones based on this chip early in 2009.

[Source: TrustedReviews]

LG LH2300 smartphone with laser keyboard

LG have been showing off their new LG LH2300 smartphone. Part phone, part Internet tablet, the LH2300 comes packed with some serious features, as you'd expect. It's most obvious claim to fame is the huge 3 inch touchscreen, featuring a glorious 800 x 480 pixel widescreen VGA resolution that makes browsing the Web on your mobile seem just as good as it does on your desktop (well, according to LG it does, anyway!)

The LG LH2300 also comes with mobile TV (T-DMB), Bluetooth 2.0 and a 3 megpixel camera complete with face recognition. More intriguingly, it may, or may not, come with one of those fancy projected keyboard jobbies...

Samsung’s latest phone is the Miniskirt

Samsung have announced a new phone with an odd name The phone in question is called the Samsung Miniskirt Season 2 (or the even-less intuitive SCH-C225, SPH-C2205, and SPH-C2255), a title that contains not a hint of the gadget it actually refers to. Looking nothing like a mini-skirt, the new Samsung phone is being pitched firmly at women, who apparently like to Talk, Play, Love.

More details and pictures of the Samsung Miniskirt phone (and girls in miniskirts, naturally) after the jump.