There have been rumours lately that mobile phone partners Sony and Ericsson could be looking to sever ties on their current venture. With the all of the losses they are incurring in the economic downturn they are squabbling as to how to move forward. Ericsson was quick to dispel any such notion but there has been no comment out of Sony as to what the future brings to these two companies and their relationship.
Microsoft is trying to do everything it can to make sure that Windows Mobile 6.5 is as good as it can be before it launches the new operating system. There were complaints that the UI was a bit too gimmicky and not up to par for such a software giant. WM 6.5 was set to launch with a bad looking honeycomb design in the main screen of the mobile interface. It seems that the public did not like it much and Microsoft has now scrapped it and gone with a more standard layout that focuses on the icons.
Nothing is sacred on the Internet these days and the latest victim is the Samsung Trance. The Trance is said to be a slider phone similar to a LG Venus and will feature a hidden keypad and touch control pad. It will be offered through Verizon and is expected to be a budget to mid-range priced phone. The expected launch date for the Samsung Trance is the second quarter of 2009.
Samsung has selected Steamezzo as the electronic giants Internet mobile portal. Steamezzo is set to develop and run the new web application. The first test roll outs are now happening in Russia, Germany and United Kingdom while other countries are planned to launch soon. Steamezzo is set to launch a variety of services for Samsung including ringtones, games, music and video on demand too. Steamezzo will have bothand premium paid services for all of Samsungs customers. Stay tuned in your area for this release.
The Personal Computer giant Dell is not sure on how it wants to jump into the smartphone market. Originally it had planned to release a phone at the Mobile World Congress but it has since said that there is not enough interest for the planned phone and have now gone back to the drawing board. There initial idea left carriers wanting a better phone since they were not offering anything new to the current market. They will now re-evaluate and try to come up with a phone superior to the market leading iPhone.
The Swedish-Japanese cell phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson thinks the way to the American consumers wallet is going to be by offering high end camera phones. They believe that consumers are more likely to buy a phone with a camera that can replace their current one and thus killing two birds with one stone. It seems like a good enough idea but only time will tell what the people do. The new Sony Ericsson C905a will have a 8.1 megapixel camera and should cost no more than $199-$249 dollars after the carrier contract savings. Look for the new phone to hit at the end of the second quarter.
With the latest release by the Youtube team users of most Windows Mobile and S60 series phones can watch Youtube videos in a stand alone app. If you head over to http://m.youtube.com and download the new app you will run a special version of Youtube that has been enhanced for mobile phone use. It will be faster and the video quality is automatically adjusted depending on your connection type. Looks like a great app to have you on your increasingly handy mobile phone.
After all the hype Acer is finally ready to start shipping their new touchscreen smartphones. Starting with the DX900 at the end of the month Acer will soon have 3 smartpones on the market by end of the second quarter. The DX900 is a 3G smartphone with 2.8 inch touchscreen that runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and includes a 3.2 megapixel camera. Sounds like good things are coming to the world of touchscreen mobile phones.
Mobile phone giant Samsung is bringing the silver screen to your mobile phone. Samsung is set to launch their new Samsung Movies online store. Users will be allowed to download movies and TV shows to their Samsung devices such as laptops and mobile phones. Samsung Movies is set to launch in the UK and Germany with the rest of Europe coming online shortly after. The initial offering of TV shows and movies is said to be around 2000 titles. This is bound to be a big hit.
Rogers Canada and Nokia just made a special announcement that it is releasing a white E71 to its Canadian market. This will be the slimmest of all mobile phones available from the Canadian cell phone company. The E71 will be available for only $99 when users sign a 3 year cell phone plan and the phone will offer high speed Internet, a 3.2 megapixel camera and up to 8GB of memory. The stylish white color of the E71 should match those cold Canadian winters nicely.
