Feb 12

LG’s flagship KM900 S-Class UI caught on video

Posted in: LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Are you the type who falls deaf in the presence of the latest gadget? Add a girl and your mouth falls agape from the loss the muscle control required to speak? Good, we’ve got the video for you. A site in Sweden is showing off LG’s new Arena KM900 flagship phone along with a first peep at its dynamic 3D S-Class UI. While we’re not seeing any of that promised multi-touch here, the cubic interface is interesting and makes good use of the KM900’s 3-inch, 800 x 480 pixel WVGA display and dedicated media chip. It’s also expected to hit in April for 4,500 Swedish Krona or $535 US if our translation of that image (lower-left) is correct. Worth it? Hit the read link for the video (in Swedish) and let us know.

[Thanks, Martin]

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LG’s flagship KM900 S-Class UI caught on video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 11

Samsung’s Android phones delayed, won’t show up at MWC

Posted in: Android, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, samsung, Today's Chili

Looks like Samsung will be one of the few companies not to show off an Android device at next week’s Mobile World Congress. Head of marketing for mobile device division Younghee Lee told The Guardian that none of their Google-powered handsets would be making it out to the show. As for that June launch on Sprint and T-Mobile we heard about back in December, the new plan is to launch in the second half of this year. Hey, at least we’ve got the i8910 to look forward to.

[Via Everything Phone]

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Samsung’s Android phones delayed, won’t show up at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 11

Gigabyte to debut GSmart S1200 WinMo phone and more at MWC

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Gigabyte is understandably saving most of the details for its official announcement at Mobile World Congress, but the company has let out word that it’ll be introducing three new series of phones at the big show, which it says fall under the Multimedia, Business, and Style categories. The former of those will apparently include the MS820, which made a brief appearance last year, as well as an all new model with “higher specifications.” Gigabyte is even less specific about its new business offering, with it only saying that it’ll be “something very different to what they have before,” but it does thankfully have quite a bit to say about the GSmart S1200, which fills out the company’s style quotient. As you can see above, this one’s a touchscreen phone, and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 with a new Gigabyte-developed interface atop it dubbed Smart Zone. At 0.43-inches, the phone is also reasonably slim, and it doesn’t look to be too underpowered with a 528MHz Qualcomm 7200A processor under the hood. More details as we get ’em.

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Gigabyte to debut GSmart S1200 WinMo phone and more at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 11

Samsung’s tiny 120Mbps Wireless USB chipset ready for Q2 launch

Posted in: intel, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, samsung, Today's Chili, usb

Today things are a bit more clear as to why Intel abandoned its own Ultra Wide-Band efforts in favor of off-the-shelf solutions: Samsung just announced its ultra-fast Wireless USB chipset. Samsung’s tiny 8 x 8-mm (0.31 x 0.31-inch) chip operates in the traditional 3.1 ~ 10.6GHz Certified Wireless USB space and delivers a relatively blistering 120Mbps data transfer rate (measured, not theoretical) compared to the 50Mbps achieved by current solutions — that’s a single ripped 700MB film transferred in about a minute from a range of about 3 meters. It also features 128-bit AES encryption and other security mechanisms meant to safeguard your data during transmission. The SystemOnChip design consumes 300mW of power and brings a built-in ARM core, UWB (ultra wide-band) physical layer, and memory controller while interfacing with SD cards, MMC, NAND, and USB 2.0 without any additional circuitry. In other words, expect to see Samsung’s Wireless USB in digital cameras, MP3 player, speakers and more when these chips hit mass production in Q2.

It’s worth noting that Samsung is a member of the Wireless USB Promoter Group that pushes the “Certified Wireless USB” standard. However, with Wireless USB start-up WiQuest out of the picture and zero references made to the standard or use of the group’s logo, this might very well be a proprietary grab at the short-range wireless space that has received very little interest from vendors to date. We’ll find out more more when Samsung presents its WUSB solution for the first time at Mobile World Congress next week.

[Via Samsung Korea]

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Samsung’s tiny 120Mbps Wireless USB chipset ready for Q2 launch originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 10

Verizon’s LTE vendor partners to be revealed at MWC

Posted in: lte, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili, verizon, Verizon Wireless, VerizonWireless, vzw

Looks like Verizon’s LTE (Long Term Evolution) service might be on track to launch this year, after all. Speaking at a Digital Broadband Migration event at the University of Colorado at Boulder, executive VP and CTO Richard Lynch said the company’s in the final stages of selecting vendor partners, and they’ll be announced at next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. He also reiterated that service, which they’ve been trialing in conjunction with Vodafone, will co-exist with its current 3G platform. He said all vendors have been told that the they need to be and running this year. Hey fellas, let’s not let Lynch down here.

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Verizon’s LTE vendor partners to be revealed at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 10

LG Arena KM900 hangs onto limelight, reveals multitouch capabilities

Posted in: korea, LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, official, Today's Chili, ui

At this rate, LG isn’t gonna have any secrets left about the Arena KM900 when it takes the stage for its Mobile World Congress press conference on Monday. The company’s released a few more snippets via its Korean site, chief among them being multitouch capabilities for image and web page zooming. Other details include a dedicated multimedia chip and designations for each of the four sides of the interface’s 3D cube: phone, widgets, shortcuts, and multimedia. One of our favorite lines, which is almost certainly made funnier by the machine translation, is that this UI is the culmination of 100 years of interface research. We’ll have more on the KM900 — assuming they don’t reveal everything before then — next week in Barcelona.

[Via Unwired View]

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LG Arena KM900 hangs onto limelight, reveals multitouch capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 10

Sony Ericsson’s W395 Walkman and C903 Cybershot bring more of the same

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Sony Ericsson, SonyEricsson, Today's Chili

In the run-up to Mobile World Congress we’ve been treated to a windfall of hot new phones and technologies. Then there’s Sony Ericsson’s W395 Walkman and C903 Cyber-shot. The W395 is a new Walkman slider with built-in stereo speakers meant for the “youth” market, a market that seemingly hates 3G or storage since the quad-band GSM/EDGE device ships with a measly 1GB memory card. It will, however, be affordable and feature a 2 megapixel camera when it ships in Q1. The C903 Cyber-shot slider already spotted around here a few times brings a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with sliding lens cover as we’ve seen — give the cover a slide and this cameraphone’s ready for duty. The camera features face detection and a Smile Shutter mode that automatically snaps the shutter when a happy face is detected. It also packs a 2.4-inch display, Memory Stick Micro (M2) expansion slot and, get this… it’ll even make phone calls. This worldphone rides quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE for 10 hours of talk or 400 hours of standby with UMTS/HSPA 900/2100 (or 850/1900/2100 in the C903a configuration) frequencies bringing the 3G sometime in Q2. Beautiful devices for what they are — guess we’re just spoiled by all the MWC goods expected in Barcelona from RIM, LG, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer, Android, Palm, Microsoft… you get the idea.

Update: Details on a 5 megapixel C901 candybar were also released sans the Cyber-shot branding and any fanfare even though it’s similarly spec’d to the C903.

Gallery: Sony Ericsson W395 and C903

[Via Phone Arena]

Read — W395 Walkman
Read — C903 Cyber-shot

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Sony Ericsson’s W395 Walkman and C903 Cybershot bring more of the same originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 09

Samsung S8300 and updated TouchWiz UI previewed

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, samsung, slider, Today's Chili, ui

While we’ve gotta wait until Barcelona to see Samsung’s Ultra Touch S8300 slider for ourselves, a handful of outlets have already played around with a preview unit, complete with the TouchWiz UI makeover. It’s not the slimmest of touch phones, measuring 110 x 51.5 x 12.7 mm, but props are given to the 8 megapixel camera and OLED touchscreen, unsurprisingly, as well as the simple drag-and-drop widget menu and three separate home screens for micro-app organization. Other than some of the icon graphics and the aforementioned menu updates, the UI is largely unchanged from its previous form. The lack of WiFi is gonna ruffle a few feathers, but the HSDPA will probably assuage some of that pain. Hit up the read links for impressions and video — with any luck, we’ll be getting our own hands-on time at next week’s Mobile World Congress.

Read – Mobile-review
Read – GSMArena
Read – Stuff.tv’s

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Samsung S8300 and updated TouchWiz UI previewed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 09

Samsung’s TouchWiz UI getting a MWC makeover

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, samsung, Today's Chili, ui

With Mobile World Congress around the corner, Samsung is prepped to launch the latest version of its increasingly impressive, finger-friendly TouchWiz UI. Already spotted on the Ultra Touch S8300 slider, the interface has been fitted with new 3D-effects eye candy, enhanced haptic feedback, and new gesture and voice controls. A new widget dock allows you to more easily manage an increased variety of downloadable widgets while Samsung’s new Photo Contact feature provides better integration of your photos and contacts with what appears to be face recognition technology. We’ll know more after getting our hands on with the UI at WMC next week — an event that’s shaping up to be the biggest cellphone show in years.

[Via I4U]

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Samsung’s TouchWiz UI getting a MWC makeover originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 08

LG Arena (KM900) pops official, brings along 3D S-Class UI

Posted in: LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, official, Today's Chili, ui

Rather than waiting for the KM900 to get lost amongst hundreds of other handsets set to vie for attention at Mobile World Congress, LG has decided it best to go ahead and make its newest touchscreen handset official a few days early. The so-called Arena, which will take the crown as LG’s “flagship phone for 2009,” is hoping to wow onlookers with its dynamic 3D S-Class user interface. According to Dr. Skott Ahn, president and CEO of LG Mobile: “The direct, intuitive and dynamic S-Class UI will be unlike anything that has appeared on a mobile phone before.” We’re not quite sure we believe all that just yet, but there’s little doubt this bugger will be keen on multimedia. Other specs include integrated Dolby / DivX technology, support for HSDPA 7.2Mbps, WiFi, Assisted GPS and “far more” amenities that should be uncovered in Barcelona. Excited yet?

[Via UnwiredView, thanks Staska]

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LG Arena (KM900) pops official, brings along 3D S-Class UI originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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