As if a giant billboard wasn’t enough of an unveiling, Samsung has released some official shots of its M7600 “Beat DJ” touchscreen handset. Like we knew already, the Quadband GSM / HSDPA music phone sports a 2.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, GPS, 3 megapixel camera, and Bang & Olufsen amplifier. It’s also got codec support for DivX and XviD, microSDHC card slot for up to 16GB, Bluetooth A2DP, FM radio, and a very welcome 3.5mm headphone jack. As for those DJ features, the turntable-inspired “Disc UI” uses a spin wheel for navigation, and the included software lets you both create your own music and sounds as well as remix other songs by adding effects and filters. Unfortunately, mum’s the word on pricing or availability.
Intel’s been talking up MIDs for a while now, and it looks like LG’s ready to buy in — the two companies just announced that they’ll be cooperating on a series of devices running Intel’s Moblin OS on the Moorestown platform. Interestingly, the release says the first product will deliver the “functionality of today’s high-end smart phones,” which seems to suggest that Intel’s willing to shift some product definitions around. Still, we wouldn’t expect a straight-up phone out of this one — we’re hoping for something more like Intel’s crazy concept MID shown here. We’ll see what these two come up with over the next year, it should definitely be interesting.
Sony Ericsson is only teasing this one from behind glass — and for good reason, the Idou is far from completion — but we grabbed a few shots of the handset all the same. Let us tell, it’s pretty intimidating staring down a 12 megapixel camera on a phone, but we managed somehow.
So it’s not totally clear to us why you’d wait for this thing over a C905 that you could buy today, but once again, that’s the confusion behind Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot / Walkman branding that they’re claiming they hope to clear up going forward — it’s just that the W995 isn’t really a step in that direction, and we weren’t huge fans of the chicklet-sized nav keys up front. That being said, it seems like a fine phone overall — the display looks crisp and vivid, the interface was relatively snappy, and there’s little to complain about having an 8.1 megapixel autofocus cam at your disposal. Click on for a quick shot at the UI in action!
We got a bumpy car ride through Barcelona, and handled the newly spruced-up and official Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 along the way. The phone has come a very long way since we last saw it, with a snappy, smooth interface, and nary a glitch or crash. The touchscreen keyboard — usable in portrait and landscape modes — is no pretender to the iPhone’s throne, but is one of the best we’ve seen on a resistive touch device. We also found the WebKit-based browser to be one of the smoother ones we’ve seen outside the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone. The phone is pretty slow when reorienting itself or entering certain applications, and, as feared, there seems a general lack of depth to the functionality of the actual “smartphone” features like calendar or contacts, but the location-based services — in the car and out — really do bring a lot to the table.
Update: we added a video after the break, pardon the bumps!
Windows Mobile 6.5’s presumably going to be the big news out of Redmond here at MWC this week, but Microsoft’s also using the show as an opportunity to launch the “technology preview” of its Recite software, an ultra-simple voice note app for WinMo 6.0 and above. The concept is one of those “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that” moments, actually: one button records your quick notes, and the magic happens with a second button that you use to search your previously recorded notes by voice. For example, you can record “Sean Cooper’s birthday is May 22” and later search on “Sean,” “Sean Cooper,” “birthday,” or any combination of words you’ve mentioned in the note to recall it. Doesn’t get much more straightforward than that — and happily, you’ll pay a big, fat goose egg for the privilege of grabbing it. It’s a beta product, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing: Microsoft’s trying to gather feedback on how awesome (or not awesome) it is before deciding how to use it going forward, so give it hell and let ’em know what you think.
We’ve no way to confirm at the moment, but if SamsungCentral is to be believed, Samsung’s newly announced OmniaHD will soon become the world’s first cellphone to record 720p video. Unlike the HTC Touch HD — which had precisely zero high-def amenities — it seems the next breed of Omnia may actually live up to its moniker. Other purported specifications include an 8 megapixel camera and a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, though the resolution of the panel is currently unknown. Have we mentioned we can’t wait to get our paws around this? Because we can’t.
Update: Sammy’s sent out a press release for the OmniaHD and, sure enough, this bad boy’s boasting 720p video recording. Also confirmed: we can’t wait to try this sucker out.
So, we played around with the new Windows Mobile-sportin’ nuvifone M20 from Garmin-Asus this evening, but there’s really not much to say: the software is barely even alpha at this point. Most every tap or swipe of the screen was met with a two or more second delay, and we managed to crash a couple of the phones. That said, it’s clear that Garmin-Asus aren’t just adding a pretty launcher to Windows Mobile and calling it a day, there’s some good navigation and location-based stuff happening here, and we look forward to playing around with it all once it’s closer to reality. We don’t look forward to meeting the resistive touch screen a second time, but we’ll just have to live with that fact — at least the Garmin-Asus apps are all touch-optimized, but you might have to pull out the stylus for a gander at the rest of Windows Mobile 6.1.
Update: Official media handed out for the M20 reveals a small handful of new screen shots, mainly a swanky new media player and calling screen that really don’t say a damned thing about the M20’s deep-rooted nav capabilities. Thing is, when you have a winged disco ball, you can get away with bending a whole lotta rules — but yeah, this is one phone where we think we’d rather let the hardware do the talking.
Samsung’s long-awaited Memoir has already had its 8 megapixel shooter shown up by Sony Ericsson’s 12 megapixel Idou, though the former has one huge leg-up over the latter: the Memoir is shipping to T-Mobile USA in ten days, while the Idou doesn’t even have an official name yet. We were able to stop by and see this spectacle live and in-person at Mobile World Congress, and we’ve got the images and video to prove it. Feel free to peruse the media at your leisure, we’re open late tonight.
I got some quality time with a Garmin Nuviphone G60, riding around Barcelona in the back of a jet-black Mercedes limo. My hands-on impression: This smartphone-meets-GPS-meets-media-player feels like a winner.
I don’t know what it really is: A cellphone that is a GPS or a GPS that is a cellphone. Of course, the cellphone has everything you can expect from a such a device these days, including a 3-megapixel camera (with a real shutter button, like it should be) and a music player, everything tied to the GPS. This seems to be the main point of the Garmin G60: Everything revolves around geo-location.
Physically, the Garmin G60 has a good size: A good feeling on your hand, thicker than you-know-who, but light and comfortable. The thing is made to be integrated on your car dashboard—it comes with a cradle with a suction cup—but it works in your hand as a smartphone just fine.
The first thing I noticed was the complete lack of buttons, except for volume and camera shutter on the right side. On the front, there are no physical buttons whatsoever, just a nice, colorful 3.5-inch touchscreen.
As you can see in the video, the Linux-based operating system is quite agile and appeared solid, although the full HTML browser stalled forever trying to load a page-which is probably a fault of the 3G connection rather than the G60 itself, even while it is still a beta prototype.
The interface seems polished, it feels fast and responsive, very bright and clean, with colorful icons. It’s centered around three main icons, which I’m sure are the ones Garmin wants to emphasize: Call, Search, and View Map. Call and View Map are quite straightforward, with Search giving you several options, from consulting the six million points of interests—already pre-loaded with the North America or European maps built-in the G60—to the on-the-fly Google local search application. This section feels very much like one of their previous GPS, giving you access to Favorites, Contact, or Recently Found addresses, and allowing to visit or calling any place on one click.
On the side (or bottom, if you are in landscape mode-the Garmin G60 has an accelerator to know this, although it didn’t feel very sensitive while I was trying it) you can see a scrolling list of icons, which gives you access to the other features of the G60, from the camera to the web browser to the Ciao! geolocation based social service to widgets like weather. While the main three buttons can’t be changed for the ones in the side list, the whole user interface is well organized and easy to use.
My impression from the hands-on is that Garmin has made what they know to do best—a GPS—and they combined it with a 3G smartphone is a smooth way. The result is a nicely balanced unit that has the advantage of having everything you expect in a GPS and all the features you expect in a modern smartphone, all under an easy to use interface.
We will give you a more extensive verdict once we get a final unit, which is supposed to arrive in the first half of 2009.
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