New Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot Unveiled

On Tuesday June 17, 2008 Sony Ericsson officially rolled out its new top of the line Cyber-shot branded cameraphone, the C905. The C905 supports many high-end camera features as well as WiFi and up to 3 bands of HSDPA high-speed 3G data.

On Tuesday June 17, 2008 Sony Ericsson released the first ever Cyber-shot cameraphone to make use of the slider form factor. The new C905 Cyber-shot sports a high-end 8.1 megapixel camera with all of the goodies. Not only does it have autofocus, naturally, it also comes complete with face detection, image stabilization, red-eye reduction, a flash, and Sony Ericsson's BestPic and Smart Contrast support. It even has a separate Xenon flash for photos and an LED assist light for videos.
Of course, what high-end cell phone today would be complete without both GPS and aGPS built-in, with which to geo-tag the phone's photos? The C905 has that as well as software to handle picture and video blogging directly from the phone. The C905 supports an optional TV-out cable and can also broadcast over WiFi to a DLNA compatible television set.
Other features of note on the C905 include Microsoft Exchange Activesync support, video calling with its secondary camera, and full music support - including A2DP Bluetooth stereo, an FM radio, and the ability to play MP3 and AAC music files. The C905's 2.4", QVGA resolution display can show up to 262k colors and has an auto-rotate feature, and the phone ships with a 2GB M2 memory card to fit into its expansion slot.

The Sony Ericsson C905 measures up at 104mm x 49mm x 18mm (4.1" x 1.9" x .7") in size and weighs 136g (4.8oz). Sony Ericsson expects the C905 to be capable of 9 hours of GSM talk time or 4 hours of UMTS 3G talk time, and up to 15 days of standby time. It will be available in 3 configurations, all of them supporting at least quad-band GSM. The regular C905 will also support 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA, the C905a will support 850/1900/2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA for the Americas, and the C905c will be just quad-band GSM for China. It is expected to reach retail shelves in Q4 of this year.

Samsung Releases i900 Omnia Smartphone Flagship

I just received a few additional details of Samsung's new i900 Omnia smartphone. This new Windows Mobile device made its debut at the 2008 CommunicAsia show in Singapore this morning.

On Monday June 09, 2008 was the official launch day of the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia, the Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone that Samsung first previewed a week ago. The device made its official debut in Singapore this morning at the CommunicAsia show, and a few additional details have trickled out. For starters, the phone auto-rotates to 3 of its 4 sides in a unique way. Instead of using an accelerometer to detect this kind of motion, the Omnia instead makes use of its 5 megapixel camera. This is similar to the way that the Samsung Instinct for Sprint uses its camera for panning and scrolling in its browser.

The full opera browser should look quite nice on the Omnia's 400x200 pixel widescreen, and the 5MP autofocus camera supports features like image stabilization and Samsung's wide dynamic range. We're still missing specs on weight and battery life, but most of the details have been filled in at this point. In any case, take a look at the video below. One of Samsung USA's reps at the CommunicAsia show shot that and sent it to us this morning.

Review: HTC X7510 Advantage - A Smartphone on Steroids

HTC's X7510 Advantage is a new Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone that has a real focus on data. It is big and heavy, but with features like a 5" VGA display, and tri-band HSDPA data, it has loftier goals than just voice.

The HTC X7510 Advantage is a laptop like smartphone with a focus on data rather than voice functions. Sure, it's a tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM/EDGE phone, but it really wasn't designed with voice in mind. Heck, you can't even hold it up to your head to use it in a conversation.
But it is a pretty powerful smartphone none the less. It sports a VGA resolution touchscreen with a full 640x480 pixel resolution, runs the Opera 9 browser for a full desktop web experience, and has a massive 16GB flash drive built-in for storage. Oh yeah, it also comes with a QWERTY keyboard that attaches with a magnetic latch and has a 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus as well.
So while the X7510 is certainly worthy of review, it doesn't exactly fit the mold of the typical devices I Cover here

Review: Sony Ericsson's W960 Music Phone

As far as Sony Ericsson's Walkman music phones go, the W960 is pretty sedate looking. But while it might look more like a suit than a hipster, it still packs a touchscreen and the full Walkman experience. Ricky asks it to dance in this review.

Introduction
The Sony Ericsson W960i is a Symbian-powered music phone, sporting the UIQ user interface. With its touchscreen interface and 8GB of built-in storage, I put the W960i through the gauntlet of a media phone, to see how it holds up.

Physical Aspects
The Sony Ericsson W960 is a decently sized handset, measuring in at 109mm x 55mm x 16mm (4.3" x 2.2" x 0.6"). The black candybar handset is trim and fits nicely in one hand. However, it's no lightweight, at 119g (4.2oz), this is one handset you're definitely aware you're holding. Built like a rock, the W960 doesn't have any annoying creaks or moans when using it, though the keypad makes little clicking noises when in use.
The W960 offers a bevy of hardware buttons, though not the ones you would normally expect from a smartphone. The front of the device features a regular numeric keypad, with a back button, Walkman button, and 'c', or clear button taking up the top row. Between the screen and the keypad are three dedicated media playback keys. These are touch-sensitive and are only active when you have the Walkman application open. The right side of the W960 houses the volume up/down buttons, as well as the camera shutter key. There is an extremely handy scroll wheel on the left side of the handset, which you can press in to select items. The power button is on top, and there is a proprietary Sony Ericsson plug at the bottom of the handset. The display is a sizable 2.6" QVGA touchscreen, which I found to be rather mushy, making it awkward to use the stylus or my finger. However, the display is very bright, but impossible to read in direct sunlight. A front-facing VGA resolution camera is located to the top left of the display, for video calling, where supported. The main 3.2 megapixel camera is located on the back of the device, along with the dual-LED flash. The loud speaker is also located on the back of the device, slightly below the camera. The stylus' hiding spot is located along the edge, near the speaker. The stylus is extremely cheap feeling, like those flimsy plastic toothpicks that come with a Swiss Army knife.

Core Functions

The Sony Ericsson W960 rocks tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900MHz) and WCDMA (2100MHz). Data options include UMTS or WiFi, though I was unable to convince the W960 that my 2Wire router even existed. I found this to be a big drawback, as I have no issues using this router with any laptops, or my Nokia N810 or N95. My hotspot simply never showed up on the W960's WiFi searches. I found the GSM reception to be rather strong, despite missing the GSM 850MHz band. I was able to use a T-Mobile SIM card and found that even with 2-3 bars of service, the sound quality through the earpiece was good. The W960's microphone does a great job of picking up voices and slightly reducing background noise. The speakerphone is very loud and clear, and was easy to use, though oddly located on the back of the device.
Sony Ericsson's PC Suite application is a free download, and despite requiring me to reboot my computer three times to complete the install, works relatively well. I was able to quickly synchronize the W960 with my Microsoft Outlook contacts and calendar, and there is a helpful walkthrough to tether the W960 to your computer, for internet access on the go. Also included with the PC Suite software is a Media Suite which offers to convert and transfer video and music files to the whopping 8GB of internal storage.

Activating the Silent profile is accomplished with a long press on the # key, and the volume keys on the side of the device will activate a Sounds menu, allowing you to individually control the multimedia, alarm, ringtone, and message alert volumes. The W960 supports voice dial, but unfortunately, you must individually record a voice tag for each contact, which is a nightmare if you have an expansive contact list. Activating the voice dial, however, is as simple as holding thes scroll wheel in for a few seconds.
SMS, MMS, and email (POP/SMTP/IMAP) are supported, as well as Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync, which makes it convenient to keep up with your Microsoft Exchange-hosted email and contacts. Creating a message is simple and offers three types of input: the standard numeric keypad, onscreen handwriting recognition, and an onscreen QWERTY keyboard. The handwriting recognition works amazingly well, which was a pleasant surprise. The onscreen QWERTY keyboard is obviously very small, but easy to use with the stylus.
Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support for stereo headsets is available on the W960, and it is a breeze to pair and use different Bluetooth headsets. The Bluetooth menu is somewhat hidden in a submenu, which is activated by pressing a drop-down menu on the top left corner of the display. I was able to quickly and easily pair the Invisio G5 and Nokia BH-501 Bluetooth headsets with the W960, and experienced really good audio quality. The Bluetooth connection was solid and did not drop at all, nearly up to the 10m (30ft) range.
According to Sony Ericsson, the W960 will get over 2 weeks of battery life on standby, and nearly 9 hours of GSM talk time. With moderate EDGE usage, several phone calls and half a day of music, I was able to still get roughly 3 days of battery life, which is phenomenal. Using the W960 as a music player, I was able to squeeze out over 20 hours of nearly-continuous music playback through the 3.5mm adapter. Very impressive, in my opinion. I wouldn't hesitate at all to bring the W960 on a weekend trip without a charger, though you would likely be needing a good charge by the end.

Multimedia / Applications
The W960's 3.2 megapixel camera features autofocus and a dual-LED flash, in addition to decent video recording capabilities. The camera shutter button on the side of the device is two-stage, allowing a slight press to focus, and a full press to activate the shutter. From the home screen, the camera was ready to take a shot in 3-4 seconds, which is manageable for a smartphone. Most impressive, however, is the shutter lag, and time between taking a picture and being ready to take the next one - it's nearly instantaneous. I was amazed at how quickly I'm able to manually snap pictures in succession with this handset.

Unfortunately, with the camera, that's where the amazement stopped. Given that the W960 is a touchscreen device, one would think that, to toggle the various settings in the camera, such as flash, resolution, etc, you could merely touch the icon on the screen. Not so, as the UIQ interface forces you to touch the 'settings' button and navigate to the various settings. I found this to be extremely frustrating. Also, the flash is either on, or it is off. There is also no 'auto' setting, which makes things ever more frustrating, as it takes a minimum of 6 clicks to toggle the flash on or off.
One of the key features of the W960 is the Walkman music player interface, 8GB of internal storage, and dedicated, touch-sensitive media playback keys. Given that, I found it odd that the handset requires an additional adapter to use 3.5mm headphones. The Walkman music player application is certainly full of eye candy, and offers the ability to browse through your music by artist, album, playlists (created on the PC or device), and mood. I was very dissappointed to not see the 'genre' option listed, as that's how I typically listen to my music.

Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson W960 is a great looking smartphone with plenty of top-notch features to offer. However, the user interface and touch implementation make it difficult to get around, and frustrating to use. The Walkman music player and 8GB of internal storage are certainly tempting, but the dreadfully slow USB data transfers and lack of Genre support in the music player are hard to overlook. Also, while the camera application is zippy, the flash and other settings are extremely inconvenient to change, meaning it's only really good for point-and-shoot. Overall, I give the Sony Ericsson W960 a Not Recommended rating. There are plenty of other music-oriented smartphones with good cameras that don't give you a headache to use.

iPhone 3G and 2.0 Firmware Launched at Apple WWDC

On Monday June 09, 2008, Steve Jobs and Apple Inc announced the second coming of the iPhone, the new iPhone 3G. Sporting tri-band HSDPA data and new features like built-in GPS and push email the iPhone 3G is sure to please many an Apple fan.

Just shy of a year since the original iPhone went on sale, Apple Inc has announced a fresh upgrade to the platform from its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) at San Francisco's Moscone Center this morning, coming in the form of new software and a new device.

One of the key enhancements of the new iPhone, and indeed the original iPhone through the firmware update, is the software – both will run the new 2.0 version software, which includes enhancements like enterprise support and the application store. Enterprise support will be key for bringing the iPhone to the business sector – the iPhone now supports the full push suite for Microsoft Exchange, as well as network security features like VPN support developed with help form Cisco.

On top of the application store support and enterprise features, the iPhone 2.0 software also includes several new end-user features as well. Very handy tools like contact search, and full iWork support (including Pages and Keynote presentations) complements the already available Microsoft Office file format support, with the phone also being able to open PowerPoint presentations. With iPhone 2.0 you can also bulk-delete messages from apps like Mail, and parental controls have been added to control the spending and viewing habits of the younger audience. The software update will be available next month for all iPhones and iPod Touches, with the Touch requiring a $9.95 update fee.

From the hardware perspective, one of the most anticipated enhancements to the platform is 3G data access, which gives the new iPhone its name – simply the iPhone 3G. Despite the higher drain of 3G data, the battery life of the iPhone 3G remains solid – up to 5 hours of 3G talk time and 300 hours standby is achievable. On GSM networks the iPhone 3G is rated for 10 hours of talk time. Apple's Steve Jobs claimed that the device was also capable of 7 hours of video playback or a whopping 24 hours of music playback.

In terms of band support, the new iPhone 3G is still a quad-band GSM/EDGE device like its predecessor, but now supports the 850, 1900, and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA bands as well. Another new feature is the built-in GPS module, which adds real-time position tracking to the Google Maps application. Lastly, the new iPhone has a non-recessed 3.5mm headphone jack, so no adapter is required to use non-Apple headsets.

The iPhone 3G brings only mild physical changes, being thinner at the edges and now with a black or white plastic back, with white reserved for the 16GB version. The front of the device remains identical to the original. The iPhone 3G will be available in 70 countries by the end of the year, priced in the US at $199 for the 8GB version, and $299 for the 16GB model. The street date for most countries, including the United States, will be July 11.

Originally from Sydney, Australia, Brad Kellett writes, from his home in San Francisco, California.