Mobile Phones
Commit to mobile
At 3GSM in Cannes, France, this week, Motorola reaffirmed its commitment to Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system and software by unveiling a pair of new handsets aimed at the business market. Due in the second half of this year, the MPX features a laptop-style clamshell design with a screen that can be used in either landscape or portrait mode, a Qwerty keyboard and Wi-Fi connectivity. Its partner phone, the MPX100, is a more traditionally styled, upright handset with Bluetooth and an MP3 player. Both phones feature a 1.2 megapixel camera with flash, and sport Microsoft applications such as Pocket Internet Explorer and Outlook. www.motorola.com/uk
Successor in hand
Also in Cannes, NEC showed off its e616 3G handset, which is due to go on sale next month in the UK via the 3 network. The successor to the e606, 3's first handset, the phone keeps the large clamshell design, yet sports a more contemporary silver finish. It features the video calling, video and still image capture, and video download facilities of the e606. But NEC has added Bluetooth and GPS (to enable location-based services). The phone's menu system is also significantly easier to use. NEC hopes to launch a second 3G phone in the UK later in the year. The company is billing the candy bar style c313 as an entry-level 3G handset. www.three.co.uk
Creative edits
British mobile phone company Sendo has extended its portfolio of handsets by introducing a new mid-range camera phone. The small S600 is to launch in the European market later in the spring. Unlike many rival small devices, it has a VGA quality camera with a 5x digital zoom and creative and editing facilities. Images can be viewed on a 65k colour display. Other features include the most recent form of Java (MIDP 2.0) and polyphonic ringtones. Talk time is between two and seven hours, with standby rated at 200-450 hours. www.sendo.com
Camera phones
Real notes
Camera phone owners may soon be able to add handwritten notes to their photo messages via Real Eyes 3D W-Postcard software. Phone users simply write the note on plain paper and then take a picture of it. Using the software, the message can be placed anywhere on an image to create, for example, wish-you-were-here style postcards. The style and colour of the handwritten text can also be manipulated. The company demonstrated the software on phones running the Symbian operating system (as used on Nokia/ Siemens smartphones) but adds that it will work with most mobile devices.
Meanwhile, a UK-based company, QinetiQ, is hoping to offer camera phone owners the opportunity of creating panoramic-style images. The images can then be displayed on the phone or printed.
www.realeyes3d.com
www.qinetiq.com
First for Sagem
Sagem has unveiled a top-end camera phone it hopes to launch in the UK later in the spring. The myX-7 is the first of the company's devices to also offer video, as well as image capture. The phone features a 65k colour screen, Wap browser and Java MIDP 2.0. It offers standby time of up to 12 days and talk time of four hours 40 minutes. Sagem was also parading the myC-3, a curvaceous clamshell with a 65k colour screen, Wap browser and hi-fi ringtones. It doesn't, however, feature an integrated camera. www.sagem.com
Smartphones
Palm sense
A new smartphone that runs on the Palm operating system is being prepared for launch in Europe later this year. Manufactured by Group Sense, which has a huge presence in the Asian mobile market, the G88 combines Palm personal organiser facilities with a mobile phone in a handset with sliding keypad. The phone, which uses Palm Source's 4.1.2 operating system, features an integrated digital camera, 2.2in 65k colour screen, email and Java. It boasts 16MB Ram, 16MB Rom and a 2MB internal Flash memory card. www.gspda.com
Push on the P900
Following a deal with Sony Ericsson, the Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM) is to offer its innovative Blackberry email solution to owners of SE's P900 smartphone. The software has turned the Blackberry device into a surprise hit by offering a combination of always on connectivity and "push technology", which automatically senses when a server has received an email and then sends it to the device without the user having to dial up.
The software, which requires the back-up of Blackberry's Enterprise Server and the Blackberry Web Client to be integrated on to the device, will be launched to enterprise and individual users later this year.
www.blackberry.com
Stat of the week: How the UK is getting online
Always on: 22%
Free access/billing: 39%
Unmetered: 33%
Mixed access: 6%
(% of total subscriptions by access plan)
Figures from National Statistics show the steady decline of free or billed internet access - the kinds of internet access associated with dial-up connections. "Always on" continues to grow as consumers and businesses sign up for broadband.
