Samsung VLUU i70 - A digital camera with text messaging

You thought camera phones had an advantage over digital cameras because with them you could send pictures over cellular networks? Think again: the Samsung VLUU i70 digital camera will let you do just that.

The digital camera has built-in HSDPA support, meaning you can upload pictures to your computer from any locations and send text messages the same way you would with a cell phone. The Samsung VLUU i70 will also allow you to listen to digital music directly from the memory card.

As a digital camera, the Samsung VLUU i70 features a 7.2mp sensor supporting up to ISO 1600, a 3x digital zoom and built-in image stabilization. There is no word on pricing and availability outside Korea yet, but you can expect the 3G enabled camera to be a big hit.

Source: Electronista

We often hear people say how they want a cell phone to make phone calls. Not play games, take pictures and listen to music. Just make calls. Well, Samsung had a thought for these people: the Samsung SGH-C140.

This cellular phone is just that: a phone. No high tech gadget or other features you don’t want to pay for. The Samsung SGH-C140 is pretty cheap: about $57. Some of its features include a 128×128 color display, 3 hours of talk time and JAVA support. Sadly, it’s not yet available in North America.

I can see a lot of people who have basic needs for a cell phone buying this one. The Samsung SGH-C140 looks like a great entry-level phone, it is cheap and it fulfills all our basic cellular communication needs: SMS, EMS, MMS and… touch tone.

Source: Unwired View, via: Gizmodo

Sony has announced the Sony Ericsson Z610 cell phone this week. The Z610 is a small cell phone that has both style and a unique design.

The Sony Ericsson Z610 has a sleek mirror finish and comes in a clamshell form. The unique design features an outside OLED display that blends perfectly well with the rest of the phone, so much that it is invisible when turned off. When the user receives an event such as a phone call or a SMS message, the outside display turns on and shows information that seem to be floating on the surface of the phone.

It’s not all about the design; the Sony Ericsson Z610 has a lot of technology under the hood. The 2.0 megapixel camera has a 2.5x digital zoom and allows the user to take pictures and upload them directly to the internet on a blog using the Picture Blog application that comes with the phone. Furthermore, the Z610 supports both music and video playback along with 3D games and 3G capabilities. As if it weren’t enough, the cell phone is also compatible with Bluetooth Stereo and it comes with a 64mb Memory Stick Micro that is upgradeable.

The Sony Ericsson Z610 is a fine piece of technology and it looks very promising. It will be available this fall in Europe.

Sony Ericsson Z610 News Release

Sony Ericsson today announces the Z610; a stylish 3G phone that blends performance with stand-out design. The sleek mirror finish on the front cover gives the phone a jewel-like quality that is complimented by a hidden ‘magic mirror’ display which can only be seen when in use. This striking phone delivers on its good looks: its advanced feature set includes a 2.0 Megapixel camera and broadband-speed 3G connectivity. With such a unique design and a choice of three eye-catching colours – Luster Black, Rose Pink & Airy Blue – Z610 is the clamshell to be seen with.

“The unique design of the Z610 is inspired by nature. We have applied a mirror finish and used a hidden display for the first time to achieve the feel of a calm ocean surface” says Eiji Shintani, Art Director, Creative Design Centre, Sony Ericsson. “OLED technology has enabled us to build in a display that doesn’t interrupt the seductive, reflective qualities on the front of the phone. And given that Z610 is also a highly-specified device, it appeals to the design conscious that need a phone for every day use.”

The magic of the Z610 is revealed when a call comes in or the user receives an SMS or MMS. The hidden external display illuminates, giving the effect that the caller-ID information is floating on the face of the phone itself.

The distinctive design of the Z610 is matched by a feature set that lets the user get the most from their mobile phone. The Picture Blog application allows the user to share photographs with friends and family, via an online ‘blogsite’, within just a few clicks. Simply take a shot with the Z610’s 2.0 Megapixel camera and upload (or blog) the images directly to the site.

The Z610’s 3G capability, coupled with its large 2.0 inch screen, makes video calling and accessing the Internet a pleasure; and with support for Push Email and RSS feeds that deliver the latest news updates direct to your mobile, it’s so much more than a pretty face.

And when its time to reflect, support for Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) allows for generous storage of photos, video clips and MP3 files. This popular and portable storage format is available in memory sizes up to 1GB – that equates to around 2,800 pictures of 2.0 Megapixel quality.

Z610 is available in selected markets from Q3 2006.

Z610 – Features at a glance:

* Imaging & Messaging
o Main screen: 2.0”, 262k colour TFD, 220×176 pixel
o External screen: OLED, 128×36 pixel
o 2.0 Megapixel Integrated Camera
o 2.5 x Digital Zoom for still imaging
o Picture Blog
o Picture Wallpaper
o SVG Tiny 1.1
o Video telephony
o QCIF Video recording and streaming
o VideoDJ™ & PhotoDJ™
o Wallpaper animation
o SMS, MMS (Photo Messaging)
o Predictive text input
o Push e-mail
o Sound recorder

* Music & Entertainment
o 3D games
o Flight mode
o Embedded games
o Java MIDP 2.0
o Music player with support for MP3, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+
o MusicDJ™
o PlayNow™
o Polyphonic ringtones (72 voices)

* Connectivity
o UMTS 2100
o GPRS 900/1800/1900
o Bluetooth™
o Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP) support
o USB 2.0 mass storage
o USB charging
o 64MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) in kit. Support of up to 1 GB
o Fast port connector
o Flight mode
o HTML full browser with RSS
o PC Tools and software

* Accessories

CORE ACCESSORIES
o Desk Stand CDS-60
o Travel Charger CMT-60
o Bluetooth Headset HBH-PV705
o Bluetooth Headset HBH-GV435
o Bluetooth Car Speakerphone HCB-100
OTHER ACCESSORIES
o Bluetooth™ Headset HBH- IV835
o Music Desk Stand MDS-60
o Portable Speakers MPS-60
o Bluetooth™ Car Handsfree HCB-700

* Availability

Available: Within Q3 2006
o Available colours:
o Luster Black
o Rose Pink
o Airy Blue

Sony Ericsson Z610 Reviews

GSM Arena reviews the Sony Ericsson Z610 and writes - “Sony Ericsson Z610 will provide you with 3G support, a standard 2 megapixel camera, a music player, and a Memory Stick Micro card slot. Not a bad offer, don’t you think? I am just a bit reluctant about the absence of EDGE and Infrared port. The dust-covered camera lens (a consequence of the lack of protection) and the rather unnecessary state diode in one of the phone’s corners won’t probably excite users either.”

Pocket-lint reviews the Sony Ericsson Z610 and says - “In the flesh though and it’s seems to have been a disappointment all round. Sony Ericsson should be applauded for not skimping on features just because they have made a phone that looks good, and for this the Z610 clearly out-performs any competition in the fashion genre, but as a fashion phone it is as shallow as a catwalk model.”

If you’re looking for a futuristic cellphone that still maintains a nice elegant look, the Samsung A930 might be just for you. The A930 is currently available from Verizon in the United States.

The Samsung A930 is black with an external display that makes it look like a digital music player. The blue LCD screen on the outside of the A930 is large enough to display the titles of the song currently playing, along with additional information such as battery level and signal strength. The Samsung A930 has a clamshell form and it has multimedia buttons on its cover to provide easy access to the music playback capabilities. While the exterior of the A930 is quite appealing, the interior looks a bit dated in my opinion.

From a technological standpoint, the Samsung A930 offers the standard features usually available to mid-range cellphones. The A930 features dual speakers for stereo sound and can play back music and video from the V CAST service. The integrated 1.3 megapixel digital camera and cam recorder has a rotating lens and even a built-in flash! The A930 has also built-in GPS capabilities and is compatible with software applications that make use of this feature.

The Samsung A930 is a nice looking clamshell cellphone with a lot to offer in terms of multimedia capabilities, and a notable technological feature is the built-in flash that most cellphones in this category lack.

Samsung A930 Specifications

• Form: Clamshell
• Dimensions: 3.59″ x 1.89″ x .98″
• Weight: 3.98 oz.
• Networks: CDMA 800MHz / 1.9GHz
• Display: 176×220 pixels, 262000 colors, TFT
• External Display: 176×16 pixels, 4 shades of blue OLED
• Digital Camera: 1.3 megapixels, integrated flash
• Internal memory: Unknown
• Expandable memory: microSD
• Battery: 3.5 hours talk-time, 8 days standby
• Other: Bluetooth, GPS, Customizable fonts

Samsung A930 Reviews

CNET reviews the Samsung A930 and writes - “The Samsung SCH-A930 has decent call quality and an attractive feature set that includes Bluetooth, EV-DO support, an external memory slot, a speakerphone, a megapixel camera, and a digital music player. The Samsung SCH-A930 has an uninspiring design, and the external display is not suitable for such a full-featured phone. Plus, it suffers from spotty EV-DO reception. The Samsung SCH-A930 makes a mostly good showing, but there are better choices in Verizon’s EV-DO lineup.”

infoSync World reviews the Samsung A930 and writes - “While this jet-black, nearly four-ounce 3G clamshell is a little bulkier than we’d like, it makes up plenty of ground with its rock-solid music capabilities, ability to sync tunes with a PC, vivid display, Bluetooth and built-in GPS. Meanwhile, road warriors will appreciate the phone’s speedy data and dial-up networking abilities.”

PC Magazine reviews the Samsung A930 and writes - “The Samsung SCH-a930 isn’t a bad phone, especially if all you want to do is make voice calls. But if you’re interested primarily in that, the Motorola V325 cuts a sharper figure. Among multimedia phones, Samsung’s own a950 has superior data performance and very good voice quality, and the LG Chocolate VX8500 has far better music capabilities. I’d recommend one of those models instead.”

LAPTOP Magazine reviews the Samsung A930 and writes - “All of these extras wouldn’t mean much if the SCH-a930 stumbled in its intended purpose: communication. The phone maintained a strong signal in our tests, and we experienced hiccup-free calls, with good sound quality on both ends of the conversation. This clamshell features 3.8 hours of talk time.”

Samsung A930 Phone (Verizon Wireless)

Source: Verizon Wireless Announces Slick Black Samsung SCH-A930

The LG VX8500 cell phone, also known as the LG Chocolate, is now available from Verizon in the United States. The LG Chocolate has a very nice look which bears resemblance to Apple’s iPod, except it’s in black and it slides open to reveal the keypad. The phone itself is a combination of a media player and a cellphone and it has a great look, but the design is a bit flaky.

From a technological point of view, the LG Chocolate offers a 1.3 megapixels digital camera and cam recorder, a microSD memory expansion slot, and of course music and video playback. The digital camera supports a 2x digital zoom, which is a pretty small zoom, and the 1.3MP resolution is nothing new in the world of digital convergence. The phone has 64 megabytes of internal memory and the lithium-ion battery is enough to power it for 16 days of standby time or 3.5 hours of talk time. The technological features are pretty standard nowadays, but the design is what makes the cell phone stand out.

At first glance, the LG Chocolate phone looks just like a black iPod with a 262k colors, 240 x 320 pixel display. It has its main media controls on its front navigation wheel and it features additional media buttons on the left side. It is small and lightweight, and the dialing keypad is revealed by sliding down the bottom part of the phone. Sadly, the touch-sensitive navigation wheel is hard to use - it’s either too sensitive or too hard to press, depending on the settings you give it. The ‘End’ button used to turn the phone on and off and to terminate calls is also small and in a counterintuitive location. The cell phone is also reported having trouble reading ID3 tags from MP3 files, and the music software is not as good as it should be.

Overall, the LG Chocolate phone is still a very handsome phone with all the technological features you would expect in today’s cellphone. If you can get around the somewhat flawed design and software, it is a very good mid-range cellphone for the portable music enthusiast.

LG Chocolate Specifications

• Form: Slider
• Dimensions: 3.80″ (H) x 1.88″ (W) x 0.69″ (D)
• Weight: 3.53 oz.
• Networks: CDMA 800MHz / 1.9GHz
• Display: 240×320 pixels, 262000 colors
• External Display: None
• Digital Camera: 1.3 megapixels
• Internal memory: 64mb
• Expandable memory: microSD
• Battery: 3.5 hours talk-time, 16 days standby
• Other: Bluetooth Stereo, Multimedia player

LG Chocolate Reviews

CNET reviews the LG Chocolate and gives it a 7.0 rating - “The LG Chocolate has a sharp design; satisfying overall performance; and a multimedia-rich feature set that includes Bluetooth, a digital music player, and a megapixel camera with admirable photo quality. The LG Chocolate’s unique touch pad and controls entail a steep learning curve, and the phone suffers from poor streaming video quality and low talk-time battery life. The lack of a speakerphone is disappointing. Though the LG Chocolate is beautifully designed and offers a respectable mix of features and performance, it doesn’t quite live up to the hype.”

PC Magazine has a review of the LG Chocolate and writes - “That said, if you’re looking for a music-phone on Verizon, learning the Chocolate is worth the effort. This is Verizon’s best music-phone by a long shot. It supports stereo Bluetooth, playing music easily through our wireless Plantronics Pulsar 590 headphones. It has a roomy 68 MB of on-board memory, accepts MicroSD memory cards up to 2 GB, and – finally – can play both WMA and MP3 files natively in Verizon’s V CAST Music player. You can put music on the phone by dumping it into a MicroSD card, or syncing it via USB cable with Windows Media Player.”

Phone Scoop reviews the LG Chocolate - “ Many people will buy the Chocolate based on its looks alone, and for those people, it’s probably a perfectly good phone. It is an excellent performer in many regards - battery life, Bluetooth usage for calls and music, and messaging.”

LG VX8500 Chocolate Phone (Verizon Wireless)
LG VX8500 Cherry Chocolate Phone (Verizon Wireless)

The Toshiba TS30, known as the Toshiba TS608 in the European market, is a very slim cell phone that weights only 81 grams.

Because of its candy bar shape, the Toshiba TS608 (or Toshiba TS30) does not need an external display and it is a nice phone for people who dislike flip phones and want a slim phone that can easily fit in a pocket. The design of the TS30 is quite simple and features four media buttons on the top of the phone to control music playback.

Taking the form of a ‘candy bar’ phone, the TS608 has all the standard features you can expect for a midrange cellular phone. The 1.9″ 176×220 pixels 262000 colors display is useful when combined to the 1.3 megapixel digital camera to take pictures or browse photos. The TS608 also features an email client and of course a web browser.

The multimedia capabilities of the TS30 are interesting, because not only does the TS30 play back MP3 music files, but it can also play FM radio and has a microSD memory slot to allow for up to 512mb of additional memory.

Toshiba TS30 / Toshiba TS608 Specifications

• Form: Candybar
• Dimensions: 111 x 47 x 10 mm
• Weight: 81g
• Networks: GSM900 / GSM1800
• Display: 1.9″ 176×220 pixels, 262000 colors
• External Display: None
• Digital Camera: 1.3 megapixels
• Internal memory: 8mb
• Expandable memory: microSD (up to 512mb)
• Battery: 2.5 hours talk-time, 6 days standby
• Other: Java, Bluetooth, accessible media buttons

More resources

MobileBurn - Toshiba’s 9.9mm TS30/TS608 - Live from Hong Kong
NewMobile - New Toshiba TS608 & TS808 on Cebit 2006
Mobile Gazette - Toshiba TS608 / Toshiba TS30
Gizmodo - Toshiba TS30 Cellphone

Forget about expansion slots and memory cards! Nokia is trying to stay ahead of the competition with the Nokia N91, the first US cell phone with a 4GB micro hard drive, which is pretty impressive for a cell phone.

The Nokia N91 has all the features you would expect from a multimedia phone: MP3 player capabilities with an integrated 3.5mm earphone jack, 2.0 megapixel digital camera, video playback and more.

Nokia N91 Specifications

• Dimensions: 113 x 55.2 x 22 mm
• Weight: 164g
• Networks: 900/1800/1900MHz (GMS), WCDMA 2100 (N/A in US)
• Display: 176×208 pixels, 262k colors
• Internal Memory: 4GB Mini Hard Disk
• Camera: 2 megapixels, 20x digital zoom
• Other: MP3 player, video playback, voice recording, JAVA applications, Wifi networking, Bluetooth connectivity

The N91 is a tad bigger and weights more than some phones currently on the market, probably because of the 4GB hard drive. However, the added data storage ensures you never run out of space to play your MP3s and take pictures!

As cellular phones become more like portable multimedia centers, the small display on the device becomes a limiting factor. To solve the issue, companies such as Inventables are developing origami cell phones with foldable display. Other companies adopt a more realistic approach: a cell phone with two displays.

The dual display concept phone, named The Polygon, is being developed by a group of design professionals called Alloy. Bearing resemblance to the Nintendo DS portable gaming system, The Polygon cell phone features a high quality upper screen to play games or videos and a lower touch screen display to navigate the menu system using a stylus.

I can see a few drawbacks to this concept phone though - dialing a number using a stylus is quite unappealing to me. The touch screen will probably end up with a few scratches, and most of the time when dialing the user won’t bother to pick up the stylus and will touch the screen directly with his fingers, leaving the screen very dirty and with even more scratches.

It is nice to see all the new innovation in the cell phone business. The Polygon cell phone brings something unique to the market that could be adopted as a standard in the mobile industry.

Source: Innovative Dual Sceen Interface Cellular Phone

Motorola has released an upgrade to the very popular RAZR V3c CDMA phone: the Motorola RAZR V3m.

The V3m is identical to its V3c counterpart, except for two new features: music playback and a MicroSD expansion slot for music and video. This solves the memory limitation issue the RAZR was having.

Fans of the Motorola RAZR may want to get a hold of this version instead of the V3c. It is expected shortly on Verizon.

Source: Getting to know the RAZR V3m

LG is releasing its KG225 and KG220 oval-shaped cellular phones. They are budget phones built on a similiar clamshell design as the Motorola PEBL U6.

LG KG220 Specifications / LG KG225 Specifications

• Form: Clamshell
• Dimensions: 84.5 x 45 x 22.2 mm
• Weight: 70g
• Networks: GSM900 / GSM1800 / GSM1900
• Internal Display: 128×128 pixels, 16bit colors
• External Display: None
• Digital Camera: VGA, 640×480 pixels with video recording
• Internal Memory: 4mb
• Other: Voice recording, Games

As you can see, the display on these phones are pretty small (128 x 128 pixels) and they feature no external display. I could not find a difference in the specifications between the two phones, other that they’re being offered at different carriers.

More Reviews:
Shiny Shiny - LG KG220 new mobile phone
Slashphone - LG KG220 / KG225
GSM Arena - LG KG225
Hand Cell Phone - LG KG225 Cellular Phone - Another Oval Shape Cellular Phone

For the photo savvy user, the LG KG225 phone is probably not worth it since it has only 4mb of internal memory and takes pictures no bigger than 640×480. However, the added feature is quite welcome on a budget phone.