Posts filed under CES 2008

Sharp unveiled a new smartphone at CES 2008 that largely went unreported. Looking at the new Sharp PV250, I can understand why. As well as a plethora of weak features (1.3 megapixel camera on a smartphone, for example), it comes with a bizarre swivelling LCD screen that lets you view the screen in horizontal or vertical format.

More pics after the jump.

Samsung were showing off a few new mobile phones at CES 2008 this year (and yes, I know this post is a bit late, but I’ve just moved house…give me a break!).

Among their offerings were a “truly innovative” music phone (the Samsung SGH-i450), a camera phone (the Samsung SGH-G800, which has actually been on sale in the UK for a few weeks now), a smartphone (Samsung SGH-i620) and a Sat-Nav smartphone (the Samsung SGH-i780).

More details and pics of these new Samsung phones after the jump.

Everyone and his dog seems to be showing off GPS phones at CES this year. Now iRiver has jumped on the bandwagon by showing off a prototype of a new iRiver GPS phone that they expect to release by the end of 2008.

This will be the first mobile phone that iRiver have released, and they’re an unexpected entrant in what must be the most competitive of all hi-tech markets. However, having had great success in the MP3 and Personal Media Player markets, they clearly know what they’re doing, both from a technological perspective, and, just as importantly, a design and marketing perspective.

They’ve got a tough fight on their hands, but they should be able to build a niche for themselves.

More details of the iRiver GPS phone after the jump.

Conspicuous by the lack of any substantial new coming from this year’s CES were the two South Korean behemoths LG and Samsung. Actually, that’s not quite true: both of these electronics giants were busy showing off hundreds of hi-tech products, with HDTVs in particular occupying pride of place in the line-ups.

As far as mobile phones were concerned, though, CES 2008 was a decidedly low-key affair, with LG in particular showing off a range of phones that were decidedly underwhelming.

More details after the jump.

It wasn’t just the big 5 mobile phone makers who were showing off their wares at CES this year. Completely unheard of Much smaller companies were also showing off their technology. Companies such as dMedia, or as they’re better known: “who?!”

OK, so you may not have heard of them, but what they had to show was pretty nifty: not just the world’s fastest GPS phone, but the world’s fastest GPS phone with dual screens!

Yahoo! unveiled part of their new strategy at CES 2008, and showed how they were planning on taking on Google in the mobile phone space. Whereas Google has the new Google Android platform, which is a set of technologies for device manufacturers to use in order to create Android-compliant phones (and thus easily use Google services), Yahoo! is making its strategy far more open by releasing a set of software tools that will work on any mobile phone.

Well, I say any phone – currently they don’t work on my Nokia E90, which is a top of the line Series 60 phone complete with all the bells and whistles you think you’d ever need. And herein might lie Yahoo’s problem…

Sony Ericsson have also been showing off a few new phones at CES 2008, but apart from the W760i, nothing particularly exciting. Well, not unless gesture control is your things. Yes, the Sony Ericsson Z555 doesn’t just cancel an incoming call with the touch of a button – you can also wave your hand over it to do the same thing.

Same with turning the alarm off – just wave your hand over the phone, and the alarm will stop (though personally I achieve the same effect by throwing mine against the wall! If that’s not a big enough gesture, I don’t know what is!)

More details of the Sony Ericsson Z555i after the jump.

As well as the Motorola Z10, CES 2008 also saw the announcement of the Motorola ROKR E8. Now, Motorola have released a number of ROKR music phones before, generally to underwhelming reviews. However, with the new ROKR E8, Motorola might just have got things right this time, and might even start to compete with Sony Ericsson’s Walkman phones.

More details and pictures of the Motorola ROKR E8 after the jump.

Motorola have been quite busy during CES this week, announcing several new phones. Of these, only the Motorola Z10 and ROKR E8 are worthy of note (the rest are just low-end phones), and quite surprising they are too…Motorola may actually have built a half decent phone!

More details and pics of the Motorola Z10 after the jump.

So many mobile phone announcements, so little time! CES 2008 is here, and the mobile phone companies are releasing announcements by the dozen…and my Nokia E90, which I’m using to connect to the Internet with, has just announced it wants to go to sleep because it’s battery’s low (where’s my damn nuclear fusion-powered phone when I need it?!)

So our round-up of CES 2008 news will have to continue tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here are some links to some of the hottest news coming out of CES 2008 today. I’ll post more about these (and much much more!) tomorrow.

Links follows after the jump.