E1107 Solar Guru is the first solar powered phone on sale

12/06/2009 14:12 par slaytane

Samsung launched a solar powered phone but not the one you're thinking of. While we're waiting for the Blue Earth phone, the solar pioneer will be a low-end handset - the Samsung E1107 Solar Guru.

The Samsung E1107, known as Solar Guru or Crest Solar depending on region, is the first solar-powered phone to make its way to the market. The Blue Earth, which was announced back in February is admittedly more exciting but we'll have to wait some more (here's to hoping it's not just vapor ware).

Now before you throw your conventional charger in the bin we should clarify what "solar powered" actually means. 1 hour of solar charging gives you 5 to 10 minutes of talk time (depending on lighting conditions). That alone won't eradicate the need for charging from time to time but if you're in a area where electricity is not guaranteed (say, while camping) this could be a very valuable feature.

Aside from that, the Solar Guru seems to be based on the Samsung E1100 but with added FM Radio. The other specs are dual-band GSM, 1.52" 65K CSTN display, MP3 ringtones, flashlight, Mobile Tracker and a 800 mAh battery.

The phone will cost $59 and is already available in India. It will also be launched in Europe, southeast and southwest Asia and Latin America latter this month.

B7610 Louvre leaks - QWERTY slider with a big screen

12/06/2009 14:09 par slaytane

The new phone from Samsung that just leaked will appeal to business people and heavy texters alike. It's called the Samsung B7610 Louvre and it's a side-slider with a full QWERTY and a 3.5" AMOLED touchscreen that runs the Window Mobile OS.

The Samsung B7610 runs the TouchWiz interface that Samsung use to cover up WinMo 6.1 OS. It will also be upgradeable to Windows Mobile 6.5 when it comes out in September.

The display sports a sweet 480 x 800 pixels resolution and can theoretically display up to 16M colors. Due to the restrictions of the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS though, the Samsung B7610 will only be able to utilize 65K colors of those colors. Nonetheless that should make for pretty good picture quality as far as our experience shows.

The camera on the device is a 5MP one with image stabilization and autofocus but doesn't have flash of any kind. There'd be plenty of space to store your photos too - the Samsung B7610 Louvre comes with 1GB of internal memory and support for microSD cards of up to 32GB (when those eventually became availble).

As far as connectivity goes the Samsung B7610 Louvre is a real champ - quad-band GSM, HSDPA running at up to 7.2 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0, miniUSB as well as an FM radio with RDS. There's also GPS with A-GPS support but we don't know if it'll come with any kind of navigation software preinstalled. In any case, Samsung Navigator (rebranded Route66 software) will be a big plus in the spec list.

The Samsung B7610 Louvre should be available in France in July for Orange and SFR. The price is rumored to be somewhere along the lines of 350 euro (500 US dollars).

Shadow, the Ultimate Device for Ultimate Geeks

10/06/2009 23:49 par slaytane

Razec’s series of 3 Sony Ericsson concept phones ends with the superb Sony Ericsson Shadow, the “Ultimate Device for Ultimate Geeks”, as he calls it. Shadow comes with a clamshell design, a textured metal back with a piano black finish, a side flipping mechanism and contour design.

The glowing Android logo shows that this smartphone runs the Google OS and it’s a pretty neat and elegant detail.

Sony Ericsson Shadow packs a 176 x 36 AMOLED monochrome display (capacitive touch sensitive screen), plus a 480 x 320 pixel TFT capacitive touchscreen with mineral glass protection and chrome bezel. The handset runs Android OS 2.0 and also features a QWERTY keyboard, a 2.1 Stereo speaker subwoofer (wow!), plus HSUPA, WiMAX, Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity and GPS.

There’s also a great 12.1 megapixel camera on board with a CMOS Exmor image sensor, a Sony Lens-G 3x optical zoom, dual LED PhotoFlash, gesture imaging, smile shutter, camera/video switch, touch autofocus and portrait camera GUI.

The smartphone’s camera also supports stereo video recording, HD video recording (720p 24 fps) and hardware decoding thanks to nVidia Tegra. Moving on to more interesting hardware, we learn that Razec’s new concept uses an nVidia Tegra APX 2500 SOC (System On a Chip) chipset, nVidia GoForce graphics, 256MB DDR SDRAM and 16GB SLC Flash memory.

Shadow’s specs list includes a 600 MHz CPU clock, 300 MHz DSP, 2.1 surround sound speakers and a Sony S-Master DSP and amplifier. There’s also a 1500 mAh Lithium Polymer battery under the case and this is probably the hottest concept phone I’ve seen in the last months. What do you think?

C901 GreenHeart

09/06/2009 01:33 par slaytane

5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, xenon flash

Naite

09/06/2009 01:31 par slaytane

I8000 Omnia2 shows its face for the very first time

08/06/2009 21:51 par slaytane

The Samsung I8000 made its first public appearance thanks to a Lithuanian online retailer. The I8000 pointed as the Omnia2 will sport a huge AMOLED touchscreen, 8.1 megapixel camera, full pack connectivity and Windows Mobile OS.

Samsung I8000 Omnia2

The successors of the Samsung i900 Omnia apparently will bear the model name I8000 - and also calling it Omnia2 is pretty straight forward as well.

The differences between both devices are a lot and Omnia2 will deserve a place on its own.

The Samsung Omnia2 sports a 3.7-inch WVGA TFT resistive touchscreen, 8.1 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording, 150 MB internal memory, a Qualcomm processor and a microSD card slot. The connectivity includes all you may need as usual - 3G support, Bluetooth, miniUSB, GPS and Wi-Fi.

Rumors speculate that the Windows Mobile OS on board (purportedly 6.1) will be heavily customized and will bear the Samsung's TouchWiz styling with deep menu restyling (much like the latest TouchFLO 3D in HTC Touch Diamond2 and Pro2). DivX/XViD support is also expected.

Until some official info gets out the door all we have here is just another rumor. The real announcement however will probably due quite soon as the Samsung Unpacked worldwide unveiling event is closing in (15 June 2009).

The Samsung I8000 Omnia2 seems to be a part of a bigger Samsung Cubic project, which also includes the previously leaked Samsung S8000 Jet and M8000.

Though not all of those devices are smartphones like the I8000 Omnia2, they all seem to share a cubical central button, which invokes some kind of Cube-like interface. But didn't LG already have a Cube interface? We guess they do. However you can fight the market trends.

One of our readers was quick to point us to a YouTube video demoing the Samsung I8000 customized WM interface (use the HQ button):

Speaking of the other cubic phones, the Samsung S8000 Jet leaked in an online video this weekend, revealing its snappy UI and showcasing its large AMOLED display. It's not an Android smartphone opposite to what rumors had it in the past. Just remember to click the HQ button once you start watching.

Bear with us - it's almost iPhone 3GS time. The Apple WWDC keynote speech should start in 2 hours or so.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 photos leak again

08/06/2009 21:49 par slaytane

We had our doubts the first time but now we are pretty sure this is what the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 will look like. The second portion of blurry photos totally convinces that the device is really in the making and much to our pleasure this reveals a large part of its specs sheet.

Apparently the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 will feature a 3.5" WVGA OLED (!) touchscreen display and an 8 megapixel auto focus camera as its two most major upgrades. The processor speed will also be upped and the RAM will be increased to 512 MB.

The Sony XPERIA X2 will run on Sony Ericsson-customized Windows Mobile 6.5 OS (which will probably be taken beyond the X-panels UI plug-in). The panels themselves will receive some new features too, including PS3 remote play. They will also come with Windows Mobile 7 support so an upgrade will be possible when the OS eventually becomes available.

Finally, Assisted GPS will also be present onboard and so will the VGA video recording of the original Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1.

At this stage there's no official confirmation on either the release date or the pricing of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2.

Another Great Sony Ericsson 12 Megapixel Cameraphone: Renton, Created by Razec

08/06/2009 14:32 par slaytane

Sony Ericsson Idou looks so promising that the 12 megapixel cameraphone must have some “relatives” scheduled for launch in the near future. Till then we’ve got Razec’s brand new concept phone, the Sony Ericsson Renton, also packing a 12 MP camera. The device features the Symbian Foundation platform, the Ericsson U500 platform and a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen.
The handset’s camera supports 3 point touch autofocus, manual focus and it features a 12.1 megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor, Xenon Flash and an unique slide cover inspired by Sony DSC G3. Renton was designed by Razec

W912 Is a Neat Walkman Design

08/06/2009 14:27 par slaytane

Echo.shane from the Esato board designed a brand new Sony Ericsson handset, the W910 concept phone, that you can check out below. Notice the 6 megapixel camera at the back, multimedia playback keys on the side and the touch display plus media control touch controls.

No info on the device’s specs, but I guess the W912 supports Memory Stick M2 cards and packs a decent internal memory. Walkman player on board, FM radio maybe and Bluetooth Stereo should be there too…

Sony Simplicity Concept Phone is a Break From Mobile World Congress High-Endness

08/06/2009 14:25 par slaytane

Boy, am I sick of seeing so many new smartphones launched at Mobile World Congress 2009?! Let’s have a break and check out this simple device, the Sony Simplicity concept phone, that’s pretty bulky and seems to lack high end features. It appears to have a touchscreen display, an intuitive interface and a pretty strange form factor.

No trace of a physical keypad, so the handset could pack more touch displays and a virtual keyboard. My intuition and experience tells me that the circular hinge mechanism might incorporate a projector, but maybe I’m an idealist, looking for hot features on a mid-level handset.