Posts filed under Coming Soon

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.

2009 is shaping up to be a promising year for Android lovers, as now fewer than five new devices are set to be released. One of them, the HTC Magic, will be released in just a month’s time, while the other three, from Samsung and a new entrant to the mobile phone space called Amico, will be following along shortly after.

As developers get more used to the Android OS, there are also plenty of new and innovative apps that are being created, including a new interface for the device that has been designed to be used without looking at the screen.

More details of all this Androidy goodness 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.

After Sony Ericsson successfully stole the limelight at MWC 2009 with its preview of the new Idou 12 megapixel camera phone, LG has announced that it too is working on a similarly megapixelled monster.

Jeremy Newing, LG Mobile’s head of marketing in the UK, promised that LG will indeed be releasing a 12 megapixel camera phone in the not too distant future.

“We’ll very much be releasing a 12 megapixel camera phone…We obviously can’t afford not to be part of the 12MP cameraphone infrastructure, and we will do that and add differentiation, through things like beauty enhancer and smile shot.”

That’s nice to hear – we want our mobiles to continue to evolve – but really, it’s not exactly new is it?! Once one company releases a particular feature, all the others have to jump on board and offer at least a similarly-specced phone.

Unless, of course, you’re Apple, in which case you can just go ahead and do exactly what you want (for the moment at least, anyway)!

[Source: ElectrigPig.co.uk]

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.

Although Sony Ericsson formally announced the Sony Ericsson W995 at today’s press conference at MWC 2009, the one thing everyone’s been clamouring to see more of is the Sony Ericsson Idou – a phone that still so much in development, the company hasn’t even given it an official name yet.

The excitement should be no surprise, though. Whereas the W995 is just an 8 megapixel CyberShot phone with Walkman MP3 player (and I can’t believe I’m being so dismissive of an 8 megapixel camera phone!), the Idou will be a huge 12.1 megapixel camera phone, complete with Wi-Fi, HSDPA, GPS and a full touchscreen user interface that actually seems to work.

Details are scarce, but Sony Ericsson let some of the assembled journalists have a play with a pre-production version of the Idou. Fortunately for humanity, they recorded their findings on YouTube; and fortunately for you, I compiled five of the best Sony Ericsson Idou videos, which you can see after the jump.

Samsung have announced that they’ll be releasing the Samsung I7410 projector phone in Europe later in 2009. The I7410 is a feature phone with 5 megapixel camera, OLED touchscreen display, and, best of all, a pico projector that’s capable of projecting the phone’s screen onto a wall at up to 50″ in size.

Pico projector technology has been in the R&D labs for some time now, but with heavyweights such as Samsung preparing to release phones with the projectors built-in, it seems the technology is about to take off.

[Source: Cellular-News]

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.

Eighteen months after the iPhone was launched, the world’s major mobile phone manufacturers have finally released a set of phones that will give it some serious competition. Apple completely changed the game with the iPhone, focusing not on features that nobody used, but on a world-class user interface that was literally second to none.

Ever since then, seemingly every mobile phone that’s been released has featured a touchscreen, but the user interface itself has been largely unchanged, with just a few tweaks and polishes here and there; certainly nothing that come close to Apple’s glorious invention.

Until now.

With the start of MWC 2009 just days away, the big guns of the mobile phone world are preparing to unleash their brand new phones onto the market, and nearly all of them have something very special waiting in the wings – full touchscreen phones with enhanced user interfaces that match or even surpass the iPhone’s, plus a feature spec that takes your breath away.

Is 2009 the year that the iPhone is finally overtaken? Read on to find out.