Posts filed under Rumours

In an effort to prove that the words “Sony” and “Ericsson” are synonymous with “arse” and “elbow”, and that the two are on as intimate terms with each other as that well-worn phrase would imply, a new rumour has emerged that Sony Ericsson is working on a new Android smartphone just days after the Chief Executive, Hideki Komiyama, told Reuters that it would be “some time” before such a phone was launched.

“It does require a lot of evaluation, as well as a lot of testing, a lot of acceptance from a consumer viewpoint, and there is still some time to go,” he said.

If Sony Ericsson’s latest results are any indicator (a loss of ovr $300 million in the last 3 months), there clearly isn’t “some time to go”, so the latest news that a new Android phone is on its way this year should be cause for some relief for Sony Ericsson fans.

So what will this new phone offer?…

One of the surprises of this year’s Mobile World Congress even was Toshiba’s TG01 smartphone. Not only did it feature an innovative new user interface, it also ran on the brand new Windows Mobile 6.5 and came with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, making it the fastest smartphone on the market.

Well, it seems Toshiba are not happy on resting on their laurels, and so are busy working on another five new smartphones, each of which feature the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and many of which are even more fully featured than the original TG01.

Full details of Toshiba’s new smartphones after the jump.

Samsung have a new touchscreen phone in the works in the shape fo the Samsung S8000 Cubic. It’s called the Cubic because it comes with a fancy new user interface that features a 3D cube that you slide around to reach different apps on different sides of the cube – similar in operation to the LG Arena.

The S8000 doesn’t look all that different from your average touchscreen phone, but looks can be deceiving, and the specs of the S8000 Cubic, which have just been leaked, show it to be quite a capable smartphone.

More details of the Samsung S8000 Cubic after the jump.

HTC’s lineup of phones for 2009 was leaked a few months ago, giving us a hint of the new smartphones that will be heading our way later in the year. However, although all leaks are good leaks, there wasn’t much detail to go on, so we could only speculate what was to come in terms of specs.

Fortunately, another leak has come along that’s filled a few gaps for us. The new leak shows some of the specs for the new devices – it’s as if HTC themselves were listening to our cries for more info and gladly obliged!

Full details after the jump.

I bought myself a T-Mobile G1 Android phone at the weekend. My old E90 was showing its age, the G1 was free for the same monthly price as my old Just SIM deal, and frankly, I just couldn’t wait! I love the Android concept, and after having had my G1 for four days, I can safely say I love Android! You’ll get the full review soon.

But then, no sooner had I bought my G1, that some other tasty Android news filtered my way. After little in the way of news, information or developments, Samsung has apparently announced that its first Android phone is about to be launched.

Google is rumoured to be announcing the new G2 Android phone tomorrow at MWC 2009 – except, it won’t be called the G2, it’ll be called the HTC Magic instead.

HTC, if you remember, are the company who make the T-Mobile G1, and the Magic was originally intended to be the T-Mobile G2. However, the Magic will be available on Vodafone, which might imply that T-Mobile has passed over the chance to get it exclusively for themselves perhaps waiting instead for a G3?

In any case, it would explain why the current G1 on T-Mobile has seen a recent price drop.

Sony Ericsson are rumoured to be on the verge of releasing a somewhat odd looking social network phone. The Sony Ericsson Reese (not sure if that’s the official name, or the prototype name) is a messaging phone designed for lots of text input, and so naturally comes with a full QWERTY keyboard.

Unusually, though, the keyboard is the main focus of the phone, with the screen swinging out 90 degrees from so you see the screen in portrait mode and the keybaord in landscape mode.

An interesting rumour has been floated by the Wall Street Journal, which suggests that Facebook has been in discussion with several lareg mobile phone manufacturers, including Nokia, Motorola and Palm, about integrating Facebook into their mobile phones.

The rumour suggests the new phones could embed Facebook info from your friends deep within your mobile phone; for example, profile info could be automatically synced with the phone’s address book, and the phone could tell the user if the person they were about to call was logged onto Facebook or not.

As for mobile Facebook status updates, well, that’s a no-brainer!

It’s rumour time again, with a number of rumours we’ve heard before suddenly surfacing again, this time with renewed plausibility (or not, depending on your level of cynicism!)

First up is Microsoft, who are apparently working on their own smartphone according to analysts at Broadpoint AmTech. The aim of the smartphone is to act as a showcase for the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 and to “…tightly integrate hardware and software”, like Apple’s iPhone or RIM’s BlackBerry.

Broadpoint AmTech speculated that a Microsoft phone would be based on the NVIDIA Tegra chipset that HTC will soon be using, and so will be capable of supporting 3D and HD video.

More likely, with the current smartphone market threatening to crowd out Windows Mobile (Android, the Palm Pre, the iPhone, Symbian, and Blackberry all offer better alternatives to the shoddy design of Windows Mobile 6.x), Microsoft know that soon no-one else will be building a Windows Mobile phone, so they’d better do it themselves to keep the OS alive!

More news on Dell and Twitter after the jump.

Samsung seems to be leaking like a rusty bucket at the moment, as yet another Samsung mobile is leaked before MWC. This time, it’s the turn of the Samsung Acme i8910, a good looking touchscreen phone that comes paced to the gills with multimedia features.

Unlike the 8 other low end phones that were leaked earlier this week, the Acme i8910 seems to offer some genuine innovation. With the i8910, the Samsung S8300 and rumours of a 12 megapixel camera phone in the works, Samsung looks set for an exciting MWC event after all!

More details and pictures of the Samsung Acme i8910 after the jump.