The new handset, pitched as a rival to the hugely successful iPhone, is likely to raise the stakes in the internet search leader’s bid to gain more control over how people surf the web while on the go.

The catalyst in Google’s latest attempt to shake up the mobile market apparently will be the Nexus One, the first smart phone designed by the company’s own engineers.

Google has said little about the phone except to confirm that its workers received the handsets three weeks ago for a final round of internal testing.

Google is expected to provide the first concrete details about the phone, along with the company’s vision for how such devices should be made and sold, during a news conference at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday.

In its invitation to the event, Google said the wireless market has only seen “the beginning of what’s possible” with the free Android operating system that it introduced for mobile phones in late 2007.

Android was designed to make it easier to interact on a mobile phone with websites and services, including Google’s, while providing an egalitarian platform to run applications developed by outside programmers.

The applications do not have to go through an extensive review before they can be distributed to Android-powered devices, a contrast from the control that Apple holds on its hot-selling iPhone.

Until now, Google has been content to let other companies design devices relying on Android. And those devices thus far have largely been distributed like most other mobile phones, tethered to major wireless carriers which typically require buyers to lock in to contracts in return for discounts on the handsets.

But Google now appears to be ready to push its operating system in a new direction while trying to give consumers more flexibility to connect a mobile phone with the wireless carrier of their choice.

The name change is effective today, it said in a statement here.

“The change is in line with the Axiata Group’s branding strategy to fully leverage on Celcom’s position as part of a regional telco.It is to also reflect both our local identity and strengthen the Axiata Group’s regional footprint,” the statement added.

According to the statement, the change is also in line with that of other Axiata subsidiaries. Axiata is the parent company of Celcom Axiata. – Bernama

A spokeswoman with Research in Motion said the outage only affects emails sent and received on personal BlackBerry accounts. The majority of users on corporate plans should not have any interruption in service.

“Our technical teams are working to resolve this issue for those impacted, ” said Marisa Conway in an email from New York. “Phone services, browsing and PIN-to-PIN messaging are not impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

The delays on the hand-held devices were reported just before 4 a.m.

Spokespeople from Rogers, Telus and Bell were not immediately available for comment Thursday.

Its lowest monthly tariff will be £20 a month for the duration of a 12 month contract – but customers will have to pay £222 for a basic 3G 8GB handset.

This brings the actual monthly fee to £38.50. The lowest tariff offered by Orange is £29.36 for 18 months with a free handset.

O2’s cheapest tariff works out at £34.76 a month on an 18-month contract.

This includes a monthly charge of £29.38 plus a £96.89 fee for the handset.

The O2 and Tesco Mobile monthly cost figures represent the tariff plus the cost of the handset split into monthly payments; Vodafone will also begin to carry the handset in 2010 but has not yet announced pricing details.

Short contract

Although the Tesco averaged cost is the highest among the three, it says the advantage is in offering the shortest contract – and thus the ability to upgrade the handset sooner.

The entry-level bundle deal includes £60 credit each month, which works out to either 300 anytime minutes, 600 texts, or 150 minutes plus 300 texts.

As with the O2 and Orange offerings, the contract includes unlimited web and wi-fi access.

On a 24-month contract at £60 monthly, Tesco Mobile customers will get unlimited calls and texts and a more recent model iPhone 3GS 16GB – for free.

The iPhone will also be available to pay-as-you-go customers, for which the 3G model will cost £342.

The self-propagating program changes the phone’s wallpaper to a picture of 80s singer Rick Astley with the message “ikee is never going to give you up”.

The worm, known as ikee, only affects “jail-broken” phones, where a user has removed Apple’s protection mechanisms to allow the phone to run any software.

Experts say the worm is not harmful but more malicious variants could follow.

“The creator of the worm has released full source code of the four existing variants of this worm,” wrote Mikko Hypponen of security firm F-secure.

“This means that there will quickly be more variants, and they might have nastier payload than just changing your wallpaper.”

The picture of Rick Astley is believed to be a nod to the internet phenomenon known as Rickrolling, where web users are tricked into clicking on what they believe is a relevant link, only to find that it actually takes the user to a video of the pop star’s song “Never gonna give you up”.

‘Stupid people’

The worm has so far only been found circulating in Australia, where the hacker – Ashley Towns – who wrote the program lives.

The 21-year-old told Australia’s ABC News Online that he created the virus to raise the issue of security.

It only exploits jail-broken phones that have SSH installed, a program that enables other devices to connect to the phone and modify the system and files.

My prediction is that we may see more attacks like this in the future
Graham Cluley

The worm is able to infect phones if their owners have not changed the default password after installing SSH.

“What’s clear is that if you have jail-broken your iPhone or iPod Touch, and installed SSH, then you must always change your root user password to something different than the default, ‘alpine’,” wrote Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos.

“In fact, it would be a good idea if you didn’t use a dictionary word at all.”

After a phone becomes infected it disables the SSH service, preventing reinfection.

The code contains numerous comments from Mr Towns about his motivation.

iPhone
Jail breaking allows a user to run non-Apple approved software

One comment reads: “People are stupid and this is to prove it.”

“It’s not that hard guys. But hey who cares its only your bank details at stake.”

The worm can be removed by changing the phone’s password and deleting some files.

Some estimates suggest that up to 10% of all iPhones and iPod Touch are jail-broken.

The practice allows a phone user to install software and applications that have not been approved by Apple.

“Phone users may rush into jail-breaking their iPhones in order to add functionality that Apple may have denied to them, but if they do so carelessly they may also risk their iPhone becoming the target of a hacker,” said Mr Cluley.

“My prediction is that we may see more attacks like this in the future.”

Bell becomes the first vendor in North America to offer an HSPA version of the touchscreen device for use on Bell Mobility’s new HSPA network, scheduled for launch next week.

The Omnia 2 features a 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display with accelerometer, Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system with the TouchWiz interface, Bluetooth v2.0 support, WiFi connectivity, Opera Mobile 9.5 Browser, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED flash and 16GB of internal memory expandable to 48 GB with a 32GB microSDHC card.
samsung_omnia_II

Samsung Omnia II exclusive to Bell

Bell did not announce when the device, which it says is the “Official Mobile Device of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games” would be made available to consumers nor what they could expect to pay.

Horror video games are having a record year as zombies, monsters, demons, and chain-sawing wielding psychos fight against the consoles, making video games the new home of horror for some.

Michael Pachter, video-game analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, said about $147 million worth of horror video games have sold in the United States alone this year through September compared to $131 million in total for all of 2008.

Actor Kane Hodder, best known as the man behind Jason’s mask in the “Friday the 13th” movies, believes scary games have an advantage over horror movies as disillusionment sets in with horror movie remakes and recycling old horror themes.

“Whenever horror movies do well, Hollywood always rushes more into theaters and people get a little burned out on them,” said Hodder, who has worked in the videogame industry.

“But with games, there are fewer choices in the genre and they tend to be spaced out better.”

With Halloween this week, movies like “Saw VI,” “Paranormal State” and “Zombieland” are luring audiences seeking a scare to the movie theaters.

Haunted attractions have also risen across the United States, with these increasingly high-tech venues doing everything possible to make a scary scenario seem real, which includes hiring actors to jump out at people and using theatrical sets.

HORROR IN YOUR HANDS

But actor Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films, said video games gave horror-seekers a different experience.

“Halloween gives fans the chance to dress up in costumes and celebrate horror, but video games are the best way for fans to actually participate in these worlds,” he told Reuters.

For those looking for virtual scares this Halloween, there are some new options. Konami Digital Entertainment and Zombie Studios just released “Saw” on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in tandem with the new movie that features killer Jigsaw putting his victims in deadly contraptions to torture them.

“The game, itself, is very “Saw”-like because you get to make a bunch of different choices,” explained actor Tobin Bell, who plays Jigsaw in the new game and the six films in the series.

“Of course, the choices have consequences, which is very much like the films. What’s interesting for fans is that the game is set between the first and second films, so it will be a new experience for them.”

However the monster of the horror video game genre remains Capcom’s “Resident Evil 5,” which was launched on Friday, March 13, this year.

Qt will become the API across Nokia devices, which means developers might actually start writing applications for them. Qt is much easier for quick and dirty applications, and proven for heavyweights such as Google Earth, Opera and Skype, where high performance is a necessity.

Nokia’s Maemo 5-based N900

The Linux stack Maemo looks set to blossom into a range of high-end products, Nokia VP Anssi Vanjoki made very clear today. Symbian will fill the mass-market stubbornly occupied by S40 at present. It will continue to be used for “workhorse smartphones” Nokia says, but Linux is where the investment for high performance devices will now go.

The N900 is the first tablet to fit a shirt pocket. It’s heavy, and still a bit nerdy, but it looks more of a ‘flagship’ than anything Nokia has thrown at the market in the past couple of years. As Vanjoki all but admitted, the N97 was badly in need of a patch-up – he stressed how quickly Nokia was working to address criticism.

But tweaks and patches won’t update the two-year-old technology in the device, nor give it a forward-looking UI, which is what Maemo 5 finally offers. So the N900 has some of the glitz and slickness of Android, the iPhone and the Pré. After five minutes, most users should find their way around.

Nokia’s inclusion of cellular telephony has surprised quite a few people. Motorola has thrown thousands of bodies at Linux, without much to show for the effort. A year ago, Linux still couldn’t handle UMTS 3G. Meanwhile, the Nokia Internet Tablet has zig-zagged through three generations: first it was internet radio and browsing, then it sprouted a keyboard and was a GPS device.
Nokia N900

Is it a tablet? Is it a phone? Both?

The Tablet series looked like a technology looking for a purpose. But too many people asked for the 3G capability for Nokia to ignore

Most of the demand, he said, comes from people who want a data connection rather than a primary phone. And so Nokia finally fulfills the abandoned Hildon roadmap it developed with Psion between 2000 and 2002, that included “palmtops” with embedded data capability. A Series 5 with an embedded modem was just one of the products Psion never brought to market.
Nokia N900

No (physical) call buttons

Jaaksi said that including cellular telephony and data was discussed at the tablet’s birth – “what markets could we build out of that?” – but it was simpler to omit it, bypassing the complex approval steps.

“They made it very clear that they want a device that integrates the experience of Tablets but with added cellular capabilities. It was critical feedback,” he told us.

So really it’s because people want to check email or Facebook – another email system, but with knobs on – while out and about, rather than talk to one another.

“Heavy users need the ubiquitous connectivity more,” he said. “Maybe the wireless LAN coverage didn’t take off as fast as some people expected. They were talking about wherever you go there will be wireless coverage – that really didn’t happen. But 3G really provides the same kind of experience.”

Maybe in Finland, I pointed out – but er not in the UK.
Nokia N900

UI tweaks abound

The device is much more compact than the earlier slabs – the N770, N800 and N810. It feels like a dense package of electronics though – around 30g heavier than the similarly-sized N97, and 45g heavier the much slimmer iPhone.

Text input is still hugely neglected by everyone, Nokia included. The marketing people at Nokia are obsessed with photo sharing on the web, perhaps because the expensive marketing consultants they hire tell them that. Or focus groups are loaded to “rich media”. But the “content” that most of users “generate” is text. Even Apple makes its SMS app needlessly obtuse – although typing on the iPhone is much easier than any of Nokia’s Qwerty keyboards.
N900_01

Look, no buttons

Nokia is very coy about battery life, but says the N900 should fulfill the goal of getting through a day. Talktime, I was told, should be comparable to other high end devices. [Update It's five hours, Nokia says.] I’ll be astonished if that’s true. Nokia’s own E71 sets such a high standard here for the entire mobile industry, I can’t imagine how an OpenGL device pushing five times as many pixels around is going to get close.

What of the apps? Messaging looks pretty slick. Email supports Mail for Exchange as well as conventional IMAP/POP3 mail. I have painful memories of the N800 taking a minute to shake hands with an IMAP server, and while I’ll report back on email performance later, the N900 is a great improvement. Messaging still isn’t quite “unified” – but given the quantity and low value placed on IM messages or the Twitter deluge, compared to the high value of personal SMS messages, that’s a good thing.

The P900’s PIM functionality is surprisingly good. It supports multiple calenders and integrates to-dos.

The browser is based on Mozilla. It’s much improved on earlier versions, and the performance here brings it into the Android and iPhone class. But somewhere near the back of the class, where the slow children sit. It doesn’t feel quite as slick at loading pages or scrolling as these rivals – while you really need a heavy site to slow down the 3GS, but my dusty personal archive took about 20 seconds to load on the N900, which felt like ages.

It doesn’t support Java, but it does support full Flash, so YouTube works fine. It’s stolen some of the iPhone’s gestures (double tap to zoom) and a really wacky one where you corkscrew clockwise to (slowly) zoom, or anti-clockwise to zoom out.

I fear some blogger, who probably spends half the day licking the window, told Nokia they thought this was “way cool”.
Nokia N900

It’s about text, stupid.

For now, the browser may be good enough, but there’s room for improvement. For example, the purpose of double-tapping in the iPhone’s browser is not merely “zoom”, but “zoom to fit” a block of text. The former may require you to faff around for ages, the latter lets you get reading much faster. Has Nokia got some cultural prejudice against both reading and writing?

Given the work that has gone into every other aspect of the device, the browser is the N900’s weakest link.

So what’s the verdict?

Now that Linux, rather than Symbian, is Nokia’s focus for expensive prestige devices, I’m more confident about improvements. Nokia’s tie-up with Intel suggests larger, faster and more powerful Maemo devices. Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft should slow these right back down again. Just kidding.

The N900 excels at task switching, the communication apps are good enough, and music playback and photo browsing are better than on any previous Nokia.
Nokia N900

Maemo 5: now more important that Symbian?

Nokia has been plugging away with its tablet for five years, and finally has something people might actually want. The always-on data capability ensures that. A few may opt for the N900 as a primary phone – perhaps people who don’t make too many phone calls. Many more may be tempted by the prospect of keeping a small lightweight phone (for phone calls) and dumping the data duties onto a separate device.

I envisage two major obstacles. At €500, the cost is higher than any of its predecessors, comparable to a pay-as-you-go iPhone, and twice that of an Asus Eee PC. Cheaper Android phones will offer the speed and slickness, with mobile operator subsidies. That’ll be a tough battle.

The challenge, and it’s one for almost everyone, is that punters with disposal income, who are looking for a bling gadget, either want the iPhone and iPod Touch – or already have one. That’s despite the fact that Apple’s finest don’t really excel at any one thing except music sync.

But even though the N900 is not an essential purchase, Nokia deserves credit for plugging away, and appreciating that a completely fresh approach was needed

The answer is easy, but requires some explanation. Fundamentally, the problem with most iPhone killers is that they’re not actually trying to kill the iPhone. They, as devices, may think they are, but most of them are playing a different game because of the OSes they run, and the companies behind them. One way to think about it is to compare smartphones and more precisely, their OSes, to religion (which we’ve done before). This is especially apt since the nickname for the iPhone is the “Jesus Phone.”

In a religious sense, the iPhone is a monotheistic religion. Basically, its OS believes in one device. Yes, I know there is the iPod touch, as well as variations of the iPhone (original, 3G, 3GS), but these are essentially all the same device with essentially the same hardware, just boosted specs. Meanwhile, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, etc. are all polytheists. But “pagans,” while perhaps not exactly right, is a cooler term, so let’s go with that. All of these other mobile OSes are pagans. They answer to many devices, their “gods.”

Now, I’m not saying that the pagan approach is a bad one, I’m simply saying that in trying to kill a monotheist device with a pagan OS is going to be very hard. The problem is that none of these pagan OSes have any one device that they can use to sell the masses. They may put more faith in one device at any given time (which Android is already doing with Droid), but ultimately, their allegiance lies with the many other devices under their OS umbrella as well. The pagan church (in the Android case, Google), would be unwise to play favorites because it would undermine the ultimate goal: To be on as many devices as possible.

And I think Google realizes that. While they apparently have had quite a large hand in helping with Droid, it’s Motorola and Verizon that are hyping it big time. But I think Google knows that the Droid isn’t an iPhone killer. Instead, it’s likely the best device they have so far to kill their real competitors: Symbian and especially Windows Mobile. Repeat after me: Android is trying to kill Windows Mobile, not the iPhone.

Another popular way to think about this is the PC (Windows) versus Mac history. Essentially, early on in the history of personal computing, the Mac was king. But then Microsoft came along with an OS that could run on devices from multiple manufacturers, quantity ruled the day, and the rest is history. Android, Windows Mobile, etc are often associated with taking this approach in the mobile battleground.

But things are different now. One could argue that there was a lot of other things going on inside Apple in the 1980s that led to the rise of Microsoft (and, of course, the ouster of Steve Jobs). Since then, Apple, for lack of a better phrase, has gotten its shit together (and brought Jobs back). With the iPhone ? meaning the combination of the hardware, the software, and maybe most importantly, the App Store ? Apple has created an ecosystem that is fueling itself.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has been trying the same “quantity” approach in the mobile space with Windows Mobile for years now. For a while, it was working fairly well, but that was mostly due to a lack of competition in what was still a very small market. Now, they’re bleeding market share in the space, and the future looks grim. Again, not so much because of the iPhone (which is hurting it short term), but because of Windows Mobile’s true competitor: Android.

Not only is Android open source, but it’s free. Windows Mobile, on the other hand, is still ridiculously charging manufacturers upwards of $25 to use their sub-par OS. Their strategy seems two pronged at this point: 1) Try to leverage the Windows PC brand as much as possible and convince users that Windows Mobile tied to Windows itself create the best environment for mobile. 2) Get out Windows Mobile 7, an entirely new OS, as quickly as possible.

The problem for Microsoft (again, for Microsoft, not Apple) is that Android now has real traction with manufacturers and a massive amount of devices about to hit (including Droid) should push Windows Mobile behind Android in the hearts and minds of the public. And while it’s still smaller in market share, that could change as well much sooner than Microsoft would like to admit.

Let me be clear: I think it’s pretty likely that eventually Android will even be bigger than the iPhone worldwide. Again, it’s a different game. It’s monotheist versus the pagans. It’s Mac versus PC. Even if and when Apple breaks its AT&T exclusivity in the U.S. there will still basically be only one device. Android will have dozens of devices. And even more in other parts of the world. But the iPhone will continue to survive and even thrive, just like the Mac is right now.

By offering one device, Apple is accepting a trade-off: They’re sacrificing quantity for quality. Apple has complete control over its device (and probably too much with regard to the App Store), and because of that, it can build something that melds software and hardware like none of its pagan counterparts can.

Artwork: Chip Taylor
When you only sell a few different handhelds, it’s acceptable–though not necessarily wise–to call one smartphone the BlackBerry 123 and another the BlackBerry 456, for example, because there simply aren’t enough gadgets to cause much confusion. Especially when most of your end-customers are enterprises or organizations that buy in bulk through wireless carriers.

The problem comes in when you drastically jack up your portfolio and expand the target audience to include, say, millions of consumers–which is exactly what RIM has done since the fall of 2006, when it unveiled the BlackBerry Pearl 8100, the first consumer-oriented BlackBerry.

RIM’s latest smartphones sport both brand names and somewhat-consistent model numbers, which is certainly an improvement over the previous model-number-only naming convention.

Unfortunately, it’s not good enough.

Keeping track of RIM’s various smartphone-wares today is a burdensome task. That’s because multiple Pearls, Curves, Bolds and Storm devices exist, many with different features and meant for use on different cellular networks. What’s worse, some of the different models seem to have been named with no obvious rhyme or reason.

Take, for example, the recently announced BlackBerry Storm2 9520, which was made official last week by RIM and U.K. carrier Vodafone. As suggested by its name, the Storm2 is the successor to RIM’s popular, touch-screen Storm 95xx device. The original Storm came in two “flavors”–one for with a CDMA radio for use mostly in North America (Storm 9530) and one for overseas markets (Storm 9500).

Verizon Wireless is expected to announce its new Storm 2, the 9550, any day now…but recent developments suggest that Verizon might launch the device as the Storm 2, with a space. (If this is the case, Verizon clearly didn’t learn anything from Apple’s recent iPhone “3G S/3GS” naming debacle…)

RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold, the Bold 9700, is available in two versions for use on different 3G networks, just like the Storm2 9520 and Storm 2 (?) 9550…but both versions have exactly the same name and number: BlackBerry Bold 9700.

Then take the company’s Curve lineup, of which there are now three “families”–83xx, 85xx and 89xx. Each and every device in the Curve family–and there are LOTS of them–is simply called a Curve. And each has a unique model number; say 8310, 8520 and 8900. But no Curve2 or Curve 3…even though it really would’ve been valuable for RIM to differentiate those particular devices, since they’re all unique.

Confused yet?? Yeah…me too. And I won’t even dive into the whole Pearl 81xx vs. Pearl Flip 82xx deal–trust me, it’s just as mind-boggling as the above-mentioned examples.

The naming problems don’t stop at RIM smartphones. RIM strangely gave its latest smartphone accessory, the BlackBerry HS-500 Wireless Headset, the a very similar name to an older, some might say obsolete, Motorola Bluetooth headset.

It’s worth noting that part of the confusion here seems to be on the carrier-side, where each individual carrier wants to differentiate its specific BlackBerry smartphones from those offered by other carriers. RIM typically helps by making its carrier-customers’ devices in slightly different colors or with tweaked features–and unique model numbers, to boot. Carriers then paste on logos and other branding to further set their products apart from rivals’.

Because RIM’s making slightly different devices for customers, it does need to differentiate those products somehow. I just think that differentiation should be on the business-side of things and have less to do with consumers, most of whom probably don’t know, or even care, that RIM makes more Curve devices than you can count on both hands.

It would really make sense from both a business perspective and a user-experience-standpoint for RIM to decide on some clear, simple naming conventions for its smartphones and then stick to those guidelines/rules when naming every device it ships.

So, for example, all future BlackBerry Curves could be labeled “Curve2″ or “Curve3″ depending on generation, with very similar model numbers for all devices in the same generation: Curve1 (83xx), Curve2 (89xx) and Curve3 (85xx). (The Curve 8900 was released before the 8520.)

RIM has spent years confusing customers with seemingly incongruous naming conventions, and it’s going to have to dig itself out of that hole. But it’s also never too late to start fixing past mistakes.

RIM’s taking the world by storm–pun proudly intended–but it could save itself a world of trouble down the line by addressing its BlackBerry naming-convention challenges sooner than later.

Sony Ericsson’s new Satio, Aino and Yari phones come with high-quality Cyber-shot™ technology and the sound quality that is expected of its Walkman™ phones. A comprehensive suite of content from music to videos to hot Playstation® titles makes it truly Entertainment Unlimited. Every purchase of Satio, Aino and Yari comes with an Entertainment Passport which offers a bundle of fun features including a number of free downloads of music videos, movies and games. Users also stand a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to catch the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

Here are the deets about the triplets:

Satio- Be prepared to be blown away by impressive visual communication that promises the ultimate multimedia experience with a 12.1 mega pixels camera function, a 3.5 inch screen with crystal clear 16:9 aspect ratio widescreen format screen and ninth High Definiti0n(nHD).

Aino- This is specifically to unleash the gamer in you, which allows access to media content anywhere, anytime using Remote Play with Playstation® 3 made possible via a local network between PS3 and Aino. Also allows Media Go™ application on your PC over wi-fi to your phone, automatically synching with all the latest media content you have.

Yari- The sleekest phone among all. You can twist, tilt and turn it for special gesture gaming. Provides endless hours of fun for games like tennis or fitness training.

Satio, Aino and Yari will be made available in Malaysia from 2 November 2009 and retails at RM2499, RM1999 and RM1099 respectively.

As its name suggests, the 2220 Slide (or 2220s) is a new Nokia slider phone. Most of its features are on the entry-level side, which means that its retail price will be quite low, possibly around $100.

The Nokia 2220 Slide is based on S40 and comes with dual band GSM connectivity (900/1800 MHz), a 128 x 160 TFT display, 3.5mm headset jack, FM radio, Opera Mini, VGA photo camera and 10MB of internal memory. Its battery can provide up to 8 hours of talk time, or up to 400 hours of stand-by time.

Nokia should launch the 2220 Slide before the year’s end and customers in emerging markets will probably be very interested in checking it out.

Now as with all first-time rumours, any detail on the new handset is extremely thin to say the least, but there is a leaked photo if genuine that is.

Spec wise, again all supposition at the moment but apparently the Nokia N920 will sport a 4.13 inch capacitive multi-touch display with other specs carried over from the Nokia N900. So, more on this as and when we know.

Share a comment or problems with phones and networks.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X2, a Windows Phone and much more

Though we learned about the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 only last month, this was our first chance to get our hands on Sony Ericsson’s upcoming flagship business device. Microsoft was showing this phone at their Windows Phone booth, so Windows Mobile 6.5 was the focal point, but it didn’t take long for us to dive into the new panels interface. The new homescreen of moving grids was very slick and responsive, and we liked the new interface designs quiet a bit. Like many other manufacturers, Sony Ericsson has gone further and further to hide the Windows Mobile underpinnings, and even with this updated new OS, the Xperia X2 looks less like a Windows Phone than even its predecessor, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Plus, if rumors prove true, the next Xperia device could rely on Android beneath Sony Ericsson’s Panels interface concept, so the future of Windows Mobile even on this flagship device is in doubt.

Otherwise, we liked the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 hardware very much. The keyboard was solid and comfortable, and the entire phone felt more tightly constructed than the somewhat wobbly Xperia X1. Sony Ericsson has built some dazzling animation effects into the transitions between menus on the Xperia X2, and we’re curious to see how far the Panels interface has come since we last reviewed the Xperia X1 phone. The phone gets its own button to jump into the Panels screen, and though this takes the place of the Start menu button, Microsoft’s honeycomb start menu is still present, along with many other obvious signs of Windows Mobile 6.5.

Samsung Omnia II on Verizon Wireless gets a Widget Store

It was hardly a secret that the Samsung Omnia II would be coming to Verizon Wireless, and we already knew that the entire Omnia family, an umbrella which has been growing steadily, would be getting a Windows Mobile 6.5 update. But what’s new is the addition of the new Samsung TouchWiz Widget Store to the Omnia platform, starting with the Omnia II. So, in addition to the Windows Mobile Marketplace, there’s also another store that will serve up apps for Samsung TouchWiz interface. Like Sony Ericsson’s Panels (and HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, and LG’s S-Class), Samsung will be fitting TouchWiz atop Windows Mobile 6.5, and like S/E’s Panels concept, Samsung has also released their own SDK so that developers can take advantage of Samsung’s portfolio of TouchWiz phones. That might be Samsung’s biggest advantage in this space, as TouchWiz spans a number of price points and operating systems, from basic feature phones up to Android and Windows Mobile smartphones.

As for the Omnia II, we were never huge fans of the TouchWiz interface design, and we can’t say it’s getting any better, even though the icons and widgets look fantastic on Samsung’s AMOLED screens, now in use on the Omnia II and other Samsung phones. In addition to the normal widgets that crowd the homescreen, the Samsung Omnia II will also use the company’s new Cube concept. This onscreen menu, shaped like a cube, was difficult to control in our hands-on time with the phone, and didn’t add much except for a snazzy looking menu screen. It was fun for showing off, but not for actual use.

We also tried out the new Widget Store, and Samsung has a nice design with their first over-the-air distribution attempt. It already looks better than Google’s Android or Windows Mobile Marketplace stores. There’s a clear description of the widgets with ratings and screenshots. We can’t say that we found the initial Widget selection to be useful to us, but we’re pleased to see that Samsung is off to a running start.

HTC Pure, HTC Tilt 2 and HTC Imagio are variations on a carrier theme

We’ve already taken time for a full review of the HTC Imagio and we liked that touchscreen phone, especially for the new features that HTC has added and the carrier-supported options that Verizon Wireless has packaged. With V Cast Mobile TV, it stands out from the rest of the Windows Mobile 6.5 phones that round out the launch list, since most of those are retreads of older models or familiar updates with nothing new to bring to the party. The HTC Imagio is the first V Cast TV smartphone, and it’s huge screen was great for TV watching, Web browsing and even just making and handling your phone calls.

The HTC Pure and the HTC Tilt 2 are AT&T’s brand names for the HTC Touch Diamond 2 and the HTC Touch Pro2, respectively. In fact, the AT&T versions of these phones deviate less from the original HTC designs we saw than any other carrier adaptation. Though both phones run Windows Mobile 6.5, you’ll hardly notice on either, as the terrific HTC TouchFLO 3D interface runs deep enough that you can get by without digging into Windows Mobile any more than you want to.

It’s too bad AT&T didn’t launch an HTC Imagio-type device, with support for it’s own MediaFLO TV service. Qualcomm’s FLO TV has been receiving so little love from the U.S. carrier on their phone lineups that the company recently had to branch out and start selling its own device. Perhaps Verizon Wireless nailed the Imagio specs as an exclusive, but it’s too bad AT&T can’t take advantage of the form factor with their competing service.

Toshiba TG01 is a superphone visiting from overseas

We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the similarly spec’ed HTC HD2, but instead the biggest and baddest Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone that Microsoft could show us was the Toshiba TG01, a six-month old, gigantic tablet phone. Like the HTC HD2, the Toshiba TG01 also uses a large touchscreen, here a 4.1-inch display as opposed to the 4.3-inch, capacitive screen on the HD2. Both phones also pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside, running at 1 GHz for a buttery smooth Windows Mobile experience. On the Toshiba TG01, we found the interface to be quick and responsive, and we had fun with the wide, yet extra thin form of the tablet device. It was a little large to hold in the hand while dialing or making phone calls, but for movies and Internet surfing, the extra large screen and snappy performance made for a great experience.

LG GM550, LG GM730 and Samsung Intrepid; updates and upgrades

In addition to the newer Windows Phones, LG also announced a couple of upgrades to some of their recently-released Windows Mobile smartphone lineup. The LG GM550 and the LG GM730 will both ship with Windows Mobile 6.5. The GM550 is a non-touchscreen smartphone. It uses a basic QWERTY slab design with a keyboard beneath a QVGA screen. Running Standard Edition of Windows Mobile 6.5, the GM550 provides improved messaging capabilities and IE Mobile 6 with Adobe Flash support.

The LG GM730, on the other hand, is a more touch friendly tablet phone, so the appeal of the new Windows Mobile 6.5 look is obvious. The demo unit we saw at Microsoft’s Windows Phone booth didn’t have any exterior interface running on top of Windows Mobile 6.5, but LG could always turn on their S-Class interface design to run above WinMo if they prefer their own original look.

In addition to the LG phones, Samsung has a simple little device that takes advantage of the new Windows Mobile OS. The Samsung Intrepid looks like a non-touch smartphone, like the Samsung Jack. In fact, that is a touchscreen above the Samsung Intrepid’s keyboard, which also means the phone can use the newer WinMo 6.5 Today screen and Start menu. We tried controlling these menus with the Intrepid’s D-pad, as an alternative to touch, and found them to be just as responsive and easy to manage with the cursor as we could hope. Otherwise, the Samsung Intrepid has an average smartphone feature set, and it will join Sprint’s lineup as the carrier’s only Windows Mobile 6.5 phone that will ship in the first round of Windows Phone products.

The site, at www.verizonwireless.com/droid, contains a countdown clock in code using ten symbols, each of which represent a number from 0-9. If you decode the symbols, the clock is counting down to midnight at the beginning of October 30, 2009. (At 9:29 PM on October 17, the clock read 12 days, 2 hours, 30 minutes, and some seconds.)

The site’s promotional language describes the Droid further. It promises “5 megapixels … Android 2.0 … speech recognition … notification panel … directions … video … tunes … 10,000+ apps … the network … multitasking … high speed … hi-res.”

The site also attacks Apple’s iPhone in direct language that’s rarely been seen before. “iDon’t take night shots,” it says in an Apple-like font on a white background, similar to the look of Apple ads. “iDon’t allow open development … everything iDon’t, DroidDoes.”

The Droid is generally assumed to be the name of a Verizon Android phone produced by Motorola. Last week, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam promised the first of several Android phone launches “in a few weeks” and followed up with an official press photo of himself and Google CEO Eric Schmidt wielding two Verizon Android phones, one assumed to be the Motorola device and the other looking like a variant of Sprint’s HTC Hero.

No other phones so far have run version 2.0 of the Android OS, codenamed “Eclair,” though the appearance of a giant inflatable pastry on the Google campus this week foreshadowed its coming.

Verizon has been stepping up their widely-derided smartphone line recently with the Windows Mobile 6.5-powered HTC Imagio and an anticipated near-term release of the BlackBerry Storm2, which we reviewed this week.