The best thing about working in the mobile phone industry is the ever evolving environment, there is always something new, handsets, software, innovation, it’s all here, and as is our norm, we’re going to cast a leisurely eye over the rumours and recent headlines, our favourite stories below.
One of the more interesting stories doing the rounds on the internet was the rumour of the Nokia 8800 Erdos, a luxuriously designed handset that actually has a decent spec list under the smart looking exterior. The casing of the handset is made from a single piece of bullet silver (although more likely to be a smart shiny metal than actual full on silver), and when the screen backlight goes off, the display has a mirrored style finish, offering an all over smooth silver look. And underneath, the 8800 Erdos packs a hefty punch, running on Symbian S60 Operating System, with WiFi included, as well as aGPS, and an expected internal memory of 8GB. The camera on the 8800 Erdos is suspected to conform to the usual Nokia smartphone standard, being a 5.0 Megapixel camera with autofocus, dual LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics. Erdos is the operational name for this new handset from Nokia, and the product may well launch with another model number. Once the full specification and further information have been confirmed by Nokia, we will offer a more in depth review of this phone.
The 8800 Erdos was not the only handset that popped up on the radar, as we also saw details of some new products from LG, including the LG BL20, another product of the LG Black Label range of handsets. The BL20 will be available in a range of colours, bringing more options to the teen/youth market, which is seen as an important market segment by manufacturers as they look to develop brand loyalty amongst younger users. It is expected that the BL20 devices will offer a non touch screen version of the impressive S-Class UI that LG have been pushing on recent handsets, and will include quality imaging specifications as well as a high quality media player and multiple data connections. We also saw details emerge of the LG GW300, a full QWERTY device, clearly designed to impact on the youth messaging market, an area where BlackBerry are growing in strength. As well as offering a full QWERTY, the LG GW300 also offers a 2.0 Megapixel camera, memory expansion via MicroSD memory cards and a built in 3.5mm audio port for music playback. There are no confirmed dates for market launch with these products, but we will update you when we have further news.
Another big launch was an update to one of our favourite software applications, Opera Mini. There are millions of loyal Opera Mini users around the world, who appreciate being able to surf the net in comfort without necessarily having to invest in a full blown smartphone. Opera Mini will function on most modern handsets that support java, and offers a superior web browsing experience. All data is transferred through Opera’s own servers, allowing them to strip out all the unnecessary HTML for web browsing on a small mobile phone, and then compress the remaining data, for quick delivery and page downloads. This makes Opera Mini an ideal choice for non 3G handsets or when you are trying to access the web in an area where your network has no 3G coverage. The new Opera mini comes with some impressive new features, including a tab browsing option allowing for quick switching between web pages, and an updated Speed Dial option, storing a small thumbnail of the stored pages instead of just listing them as previously done. The new Opera Mini is still in beta, so there may be a few bug issues to work through, but historically Opera have always been quick to iron out any issues. Optimised for both touchscreen devices and phones with keypad, Opera Mini 5 beta is sure to deliver an impressive web browsing experience. To try out the new application, point your phone’s regular browser to m.opera.com/next and follow the on screen instructions.
We mentioned last week about some new software updates that had been made available for current mobile phones, and this week it was the turn of HTC to release an update for the HTC Hero. The new update has been eagerly expected, and should deal with any screen lag issues users may have been experiencing. The overall speed of the device is improved, and the camera is now equipped with a touch-to-focus option, which overcomes the autofocus issues experienced previously when using just the roller ball for camera activity. The HTC Hero has been an immediate hit, selling in large numbers, and although generally well received the lag issues have been a bit of a problem, so this is a welcome software update. If you use a smartphone of any type, you are really losing out if you do not keep the firmware updated, and it can have a negative impact on your user experience. With many smartphones offering the option to update the firmware via your own home PC, it has never been easier to keep your phone up to date with the latest approved operating version. To update the Hero, just follow the links from the HTC website.
The last story that caught our attention was the release of a beta application from Nokia beta labs, which offers blind people the option of reading messages in Braille on their S60 touchscreen smartphones. There already exists an option for SMS to be read out with text to speech software, but there may be occasions when having a text read out loud is not convenient. With the Braille Reader from beta labs, letters are spelled out using the handsets vibrate option, using a mix of hard and soft vibrate to indicate each letter. This is an excellent use of a mobile phone application, and Nokia, together with Tampere University and the Finnish Federation for the Visually Impaired are to be applauded for such innovation. Video of the Braille Reader below courtesy of Nokia Beta Labs.
