Nokia is to launch 40 new Eco-Friendly Mobile Phones this year

Nokia is said to be planning to launch around 40 new mobile phones this year - each containing biodegradable components that can be easily recycled. D Shivakumar, VP and managing director, Nokia India, told India’s Business Standard newspaper: “We will be using biodegradable phone covers, recyclable battery designs that use less harmful toxic materials and energy efficient accessories for all our forthcoming phones. Already, we have eliminated the use of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) in all our phones.” Nokia is also evaluating plans to put a prepaid postage bag within each box when a handset is sold to allow customers to return their older model for recycling. The Nokia 3110 is already said to by sixty-five percent recyclable - and the company has plans to reduce the power consumption of mobile phone chargers by 50% by 2010.

T-Mobile USA to Launch the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Starting May 28

T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced the upcoming availability of the much-anticipated Nokia 5310 XpressMusic phone (announced last August). Starting May 28, T-Mobile will continue to enhance its customers’ music experience by offering the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic which offers a variety of features, including easy-to-use external music controls, stereo Bluetooth connectivity, wired stereo headsets, a USB cable for side-loading music and a memory card — all at an affordable price.

Items include a music-themed download to use for their Nokia 5310 XpressMusic or to give to a friend, or a grand prize of a $100 Ticketmaster Gift Card to be used toward the purchase of two tickets to a concert of the winner’s choice,1 enabling customers to truly share the joy and experience of music with a friend. Additional features of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic include:

• T-Mobile myFaves-enabled
• Music player with dedicated external music controls
• MP3 and video ring tones
• Stereo Bluetooth connectivity
• 2.0 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Video capture and playback
• FM radio
• 1GB microSD card included in box (support for up to 4GB)
• Digital music player (supports AAC, eAAC+, MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats)
• 2-inch QVGA 240×320 display with up to 16 million colors
• Stereo wired headset
• 3.5 mm headphone jack, compatible for use with most music player earphones
• Hands-free speaker
• Voice dialing, voice commands and voice recorder
• Tri-band 850/1800/1900 MHz GSM, GPRS, EDGE
• Dimensions: 1.76 x 4.09 x 0.39 inches, 3.0 ounces

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic phone will be available beginning May 28, 2008, at select T-Mobile retail stores and online at www.t-mobile.com. Customers can purchase the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic for $49.99 with a two-year contract.

Bell launches LG Vantage slider touch phone

Bell Canada is now shipping the LG Vantage – also known as LG Glimmer on the US carrier Alltel – offering Canadians their first glimpse of the touchscreen slider phone. The phone will feature EVDO connectivity and dual-band GSM, and sports a 2MP camera, Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot. The Vantage joins Bell’s list of devices as competition to the LG Shine, which is currently in service with both Telus and Rogers Wireless.

Bell will offer the device at $425 without contract, with one, two, and three year contracts reducing the price to $375, $275, and $225, respectively.

HTC ups Touch Diamond shipments by 50%

HTC is boosting its shipments for the Touch Diamond based on a sharp spike in the likely demand for the device, company chief Peter Chou has said at a Tokyo conference. The Taiwan-area phone creator now plans to increase shipments of the Windows Mobile phone from its earlier two million-unit forecast to about three million, or a full 50 percent higher than before. Where it took the original Touch 11 months to reach three million, the Diamond should only take the 7 months of June through December to reach that goal, according to Chou.


The HTC leader doesn't explain why he believes the goal possible, though the Diamond is known to have a wider release schedule that will start with Europe in June but quickly spread to other areas, including the US by the second half of this year. Upgrades to the Diamond also increase the accessibility of the device, as 3G support enables the new Touch to work in Japan, Korea, and other areas where the 2G-only GSM original is incompatible.

Most other handset designers typically don't release shipment forecasts for individual models, though Apple has publicly stated since 2007 that it expects to deliver 10 million iPhones in 2008. The American company reports shipping 1.7 million iPhones in the first three months of the year and is widely predicted to cross the three million mark by the end of June.

Griffin claims first iPhone-ready iTrip

Griffin today unveiled the iTrip AutoPilot. The FM transmitter is the first from Griffin to support the iPhone, allowing it to plug in and work properly without interference and while supporting all the iTrip's features. For both the phone and all fourth-generation and later dockable iPods, the latest iTrip includes a distinguishing controller at the iTrip's connection to a car's 12-volt power port that lets users change volume, pause or skip tracks while stowing the Apple device in a safer location.

The AutoPilot further aims to be the best of all car-borne iTrips, displaying the iPhone or iPod's track data through the stereo using RDS data and continues to use its SmartScan technology to find the three clearest FM channels and assign them as presets, giving drivers a good signal with the option of overriding it later. SmartSound Plus allegedly improves the sound quality of the FM broadcast in actual driving conditions, while a high-contrast LCD fixes a complaint with early versions of the iTrip update.

Griffin will sell the new transmitter through Apple and other resellers for $99.

Hurbo PSP - The Real Phony PSP Phone

Here it goes folks, the much rumored PSP Mobile Phone BUT it is not manufactured by Sony Ericsson rather by some Chinese producer who named the device Hurbo PSP. Probably wanting to sound like “Turbo”, the real-fake PSP phone doesn’t look bad and with more attention to details it could have actually passed as a device made by Sony Ericsson.

If you take a look at the pictures, the Hurbo PSP features a dual-sliding design and has both an alphanumeric keypad and a gaming pad – exactly like the PSP phone that Sony Ericsson is rumored to work on. This Chinese Hurbo PSP phones measures 100 x 46 x 18 millimeters and weighs 102 grams – not much for a handset that works both as a phone and as a mini-console for games. Also the Hurbo PSP phone has some nice features as well.

• 2.8 inch display with 240 x 400 pixels and 16 million colors
• NES emulator, allowing users to play Nintendo games (although this is surely not approved by Nintendo)
• Video player with support for AVI, MP4 and 3GP
• Music player
• FM radio
• USB port and microSD card slot for boosting the internal (unknown) memory.

Apple’s touchscreen iTablet - Next-gen Newton - has been confirmed by the Intel boss

The rumor about a multi-touch Apple tablet has been around for a while, but an official source has stepped forward and admitted something is at the core of the Apple rumours. Intel’s Hannes Schwaderer of the company’s German ops, has now stated unequivocally that Apple will be using the new Intel Atom processor - designed for use in MIDs - in a “future iPhone.” This mysterious device is said to be larger than the existing model - cue iTablet rumours - due to its larger display with the suggestion of 720 x 480 screen spec. Intell is also officially launching the Atom platform in June - around about the same time Apple boss Steve Jobs will be taking to the stage for his WWDC08 keynote speech. Just put 2 and 2 together and you will find the cool itabletis on your way.

Now They Come in Packets: The New Concept Packet Phone

Concept phones may never materialize and may never be a part of real life, but they sure do give us a glimpse into the future just like the Nokia’s Morph.

Emir Rafat, a Turkish designer, won first prize for a ‘packet phone’ which was exhibited at Istanbul Design Week 2007.

The cell phone measures 5 x 5 cm while folded, once open it reveals four panels of 5 x 5 cm, which compromise of a touch screen, mini keyboard, and surface with touch sensitive buttons. The design of the phone is said to be inspired by the art of origami, and is proposed to be made from e-paper, making it extra thin and light.

Motorola ROKR E8 Released in Asia retailing around $400

Motorola recently released its fancy ROKR E8 music phone in Asia to meet mobile music needs of Asian users. Moto ROKR E8 is one of the slimmest music phones currently on the market. The handset has quite a nice design, coming with a flat, touch-sensitive keypad that can morph to offer easy control over different functions

• Thickness 10.6 millimeters
• Music player, photo camera or phone-only features
• 2 inch TFT display with 320 x 240 pixel and 256K color support
• Navigation scroll wheel
• 3.5mm audio jack, quad-band GSM connectivity with GPRS and EDGE
• Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• Stereo FM radio, email, WAP 2.0 and HTML browser
• Instant Messaging
• USB 2.0, Java MIDP 2.0, handsfree
• 2 Megapixel camera with video
• 2GB of internal memory and microSD card slot.
• Measures 115 x 53 x 10.6 millimeters
• Weighs 100 grams
• Includes a 970 mAh Li-Ion battery with 5 hours in talk-time mode and up to 300 hours in stand-by mode.

All in all, the ROKR E8 is a cool handset and would probably have a great commecial success if Motorola could launch this phone 6-8 months ago. And now, it doesn’t look so promosing any more. Anyways, the Motorola ROKR E8 is available for a price of around $400, depending on the country you buy it from.

UK top in Europe in mobile social networking

Nielsen Mobile have just unveiled statistics showing that the UK leads Europe in mobile social networking with 810,000 subscribers visiting social networking sites on their handsets in the first quarter of this year.

Facebook was the most popular social networking site in the UK, with myspace following behind in second – opposite to what is found in America.

The two leading social networking sites have differing strategies. myspace have secured a number of deals with network operators to re-provide their services. Facebook on the other hand seem to have something of an operator-agnostic approach. Despite the different approaches, both websites are being accessed regularly by an increasing number of mobile users, thus promoting the use of mobile web and mobile “data” generally.

iPhones to Online Store

AT&T today re-added supplies of refurbished Apple iPhone units.

The huge deal that refurbished iPhones represent meant that they were only offered in-store on a strict first come first serve basis with very limited availability and a limit of one per customer to prevent resellers from marking up the devices for pure profit. At $249.99 without an agreement required (versus $399.99 for a new iPhone 8 GB), they are sure to go fast and this deal can end at any time.

Also, new this time, AT&T has begun offering the 16 GB version for $349.99. This is also $150 less than the new retail price for a 16 GB iPhone.

Sprint HTC Mogul Beta Leaks, Windows Mobile 6.1 and Sprint TV Added

Whoa now, hold up there -- yes, we know HTC's got some serious equipment in the works for Sprint this year, but we can't put that Mogul out to pasture just yet. Fortunately, Sprint and HTC both seem relatively committed to keeping the flagship Windows Mobile model up to date, and we now have an official beta firmware floating around that adds Sprint TV and the real prize, Windows Mobile 6.1. Naturally, due caution must be observed when dealing with prerelease wares, but let's be honest, Mogul owners: every single one of you are going to give this a shot, now aren't you?

Texas Instruments to bring projectors on to cellphones

Pico projectors, look set to bring the utility of projector technology to the mobile world. Miniaturization advances have allowed projectors to be scaled down to fit in cellphones. John Van Scoter, the senior vice president of Texas Instruments (TI), has confirmed that mobile phones incorporating TI’s projector technology will hit the market with pico projectors in tow later in 2008 – similar to other pico-projector manufacturers. Surprising but true – we will see some handset makers put TI’s miniaturized projectors insode mobile phones for the consumer market. If all goes well, TI expects projectors to rival the ubiquity of camers in mobile phones. TI recently showed off its DLP Pico technology to bring the sharp pictures and vivid colors of DLP displays onto the mobile device platform. Who said the 3G iPhone was the only big thing to look forward to this year?

Blackberry Bold release dates

Those of you dying to get your QWERTY on with RIM's hot new Blackberry Bold can start marking your calendars and stashing cash under the cushions -- release dates and pricing info have hit the tubes this morning. As expected, AT&T will get the Bold first in July for $300, while Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers will have to wait until September. Oddly, T-Mo subs will have to cough up an extra $50, which seems a little unfair. Of course, these aren't official dates and prices, so things are likely to change, but we'd say everything seems in the ballpark, wouldn't you?

Orange secures iPhone deal for distribution in around a dozen markets

Telecom-owned Orange released the following announcement:

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.

Yet again, we observe that exclusive country deals are a thing of the past with Austria, Egypt, Portugal and Switzerland having two iPhone carriers.