Device Arena

E-Ten Information Systems plans to launch own-brand mobile TV handsets in 2008, according to company chairman Hwang Shan-rong.

Initially the handsets will support only the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) standard, but the company also plans to introduce models supporting multiple broadcasting standards later on since the chipset solutions currently available are able to support multiple technologies, Hwang indicated.

Hwang also pointed out that the number of mobile TV subscribers is expected to top 500 million in 2010, compared to the current number of around 30 million.

DIGITIMES

Pinstack Forums member cp6169 posted deets on the the new Sprint BlackBerry Power Vision Plan that will launch on November 4th. Like T-Mobile, Sprint is coming out with a cheaper BIS compared to it’s corporate BES Plans.

The Boy Genius Report

All you loyal Sprint-loving BlackBerry users will sure as hell be pleased as punch with this one! We’ve received a 100% confirmation on the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 launch for Sprint, and it’s November the 23rd. Yeah, that’s Black Friday, guys! We tried to give y’all the drop on this a while back, but now we’ve confirmed it. Also, a quick heads up — the color of the Pearl on Sprint is amethyst. Save those dollars, port those numbers, and mark 11/23 on your Sprint calendar!

The Boy Genius Report

As you already know, Samsung i780 is not BlackJack II for AT&T.

Still, GPS equipped Samsung i780, that we spotted in September is one fine smartphone, and it was officially launched in London yesterday.

Samsung i780 is a slim messaging mobile phone based on Windows Mobile PPC with a full QWERTY keyboard. It has a large 2.55” TFT touch screen and an optical joystick, allowing for 360’ navigation on menus, Internet and applications. It allows users to be connected at all times through HSDPA (up to 3.6Mbps) and 802.11b/g. It is equipped with A-GPS, while a full navigation package is also available.

Full specs for Samsung i780 include:
Mobile Windows 6 Pro OS
2.6″ TFT touch screen
Full QWERTY keyboard
integrated A-GPS
Triband GSM (900, 1800 and 1900 MHz), GPRS/ EDGE, 2100 MHz UMTS/ HSDPA
2mpx digital camera, front VGA camera for video calls
256 MB ROM
128 MB RAM
Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
MiniUSB 2.0
microSD port
Dimensions : 11.6×6.1×1.3 cm

Samsung i780 price and shipping date has not been announced yet. However it’s part of this years phone line-up so it should start shipping in the begining of December at latest.

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With the barrage of new phone announcements by Samsung, you’d think that it should already be enough for this Christmas.

Apparently not. All these phones, like Samsung B&O Serenata, 5 mpx Samsung G800 , GPS equipped Samsung i780, or luxury Samsung Armani P520 are at the very high end of mobile phone offerings. What about for those who don’t want to overspend on their new phone?

Well, they can have a new Samsung M110 handset.

Not much can be said about Samsung M110 for now. What’s clear from the pictures, is that this candybar handset will have a tiny screen and VGA camera.

Samsung M110 is certainly targeted to the lower end of the market so it’s probably 2.5G GSM/GPRS phone. Idnes.cz mentions FM radio in it, mp3 player is also probably a safe bet. Maybe it’s just the colors, but overall looks of Samsung M110 give a feeling of a rugged phone.

The pictures of Samsung M110 appeared on the site of Dutch online retailer GSM.nu. Unlocked Samsung M110 is also listed on Amazon UK for £99.99 and is expected to ship on December 05 there.

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The Nokia N95 8GB is about to make its way to the telecomshops. But what are the differences with the well-known Nokia N95 and what can the consumer expect of this powerfull device? Mobile Phone Helpdesk got the chance to test the possibilities of this slider and puts the experiences down in this expanded preview.

When looking at its design and appearance the Nokia N95 8GB looks a lot like the Nokia N95. The devices are the same size but the display of the Nokia N95 8GB is somewhat bigger than the one the Nokia N95 offers. The Nokia N95 8GB feels the same as the Nokia N85 and with her black colour she has a stylish appearance. The quick keys of the Nokia N95 8GB have remained the same and with this the device is as userfriendly and practical als the Nokia N95.

The Nokia N95 8GB has also remained the same when it comes to the sliding keyboard and the sliding multimedia keys. At the top of the Nokia N95 8GB we can still slide out extra multimedia keys just as with the regular Nokia N95 and with this the user will have direct access to the functions the device is best at. Furthermore, the regular keyboard will be revealed at the bottom of the device, with which the used will be able to type messages.



Quick keys
The Nokia N95 8GB is equipped with the same quick keys as the Nokia N95. This makes sure that the owner of the device can reach the camera function with only one press on the button or adjust the sound of the device in one second. At the left side of the Nokia N95 8GB we find the port for the headset and one of the two speakers.

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Motorola today announced that the Motorola Centellis(TM) 2000 AdvancedTCA(R) communications server received the Best In Show for Infrastructure Products award at the third annual AdvancedTCA Summit. The conference was held October 16 - 18, 2007 in Santa Clara, California.

The recently announced two-slot Centellis 2000 was recognized by a panel of industry experts for its distinctiveness in demonstrating the central use of AdvancedTCA and ability to offer significant business and technical benefits. The award was announced Wednesday, October 17 at the AdvancedTCA Summit’s awards ceremony.

“We are delighted to accept the Best of Show award for the Centellis 2000,” said Brian Carr, strategic marketing manager, Embedded Communications Computing, Motorola. “We believe its unique front to rear cooling architecture is an industry first, and because it is designed to meet CP-TA B.4 class thermal performance, the Centellis 2000 chassis will be able to handle the highest power AdvancedTCA boards in both slots with the highest reliability and availability rating for components.”

The Motorola Centellis 2000 AdvancedTCA platform provides all the business benefits of larger communications servers, but in a compact, two-slot version. With the ability to reuse any of the AdvancedTCA payload from its larger peers, the Centellis 2000 offers a cost-effective, industry standard solution suitable for smaller scale deployments, and enables network equipment providers to take advantage of their existing AdvancedTCA deployments by reusing hardware and software, providing investment protection and helping to reduce time to market and development cost.

The front to rear cooling architecture is an important benefit for installation into central office locations, and with both AC and redundant DC powered variants available, the Centellis 2000 is equally at home in data centers and enterprise environments as well.

“When our panel of industry experts reviewed the entrants, Motorola’s Centellis 2000 came out as the clear leader in the infrastructure category,” said Ernie Bergstrom, president, Crystal Cube Consulting, who is the AdvancedTCA Summit chairman as well as chairman of the Best of Show awards program. “No one else was even close! It’s evident that this two-slot system struck a chord in terms of its potential impact on the industry.”

Compatible with Motorola’s Centellis 31K 1Gbps and 4100 10Gbps application-ready platforms, the Centellis 2000 enables system and network scalability across both chassis size and network speed and reduces customer design time, reducing product time to market. This product series provides front-to-rear cooling, AC or DC power and a PICMG compliant chassis. More information is available at http://www.motorola.com/computing.

Well, QKfone W800 phone/watch was a nice idea.

But you know what’s the main problem with these kinds of phones is? It’s their size. If you want to have any kind of advanced functionality from such a watch/phone, you’ll end up with a big big bulb on your wrist. And forget about numeric keypad and/or convenient data entry!

So the best you can expect for your hybrid watch to remain actually usable - is a Bluetooth remote control like Sony Ericsson MBW-150 Bluetooth Watch.

Or maybe not? Samsung has quite an interesting idea of how to make your wrist watch/phone hybrid actually small enough and easy to use:

Just split the darn thing into two parts.

The first, detachable one, contains all the things that makes the phone usable - screen, keypad, speaker, microphone, camera, small battery and Bluetooth or UWB communication chip.

The second one, located on the wristband has the rest. 2.5/3G communications chipset, main battery, application processors, etc.

All the real communication/processing work is done here and, when the first part is detached, the data is transmitted via Bluetooth or UWB

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Disney may be shutting down it’s mobile service in the States, but that doesn’t mean that it is out of mobile game now.

Disney decided to move to Italy instead and, with the help of LG is launching Disney Mobile 3 on 3 Italia network.

LG Disney Mobile 3 automatically blocks access to numbers with inappropriate content and comes stuffed with various Disney branded goodies, like customized Vintage Mickey user interface, pre-installed JAVA games, wallpaper and ringtones.

Via 3 Italy network, Disney Mobile 3 also provides for easy access to Disney-Tones High School Musical games by Jack Sparrow and videos of Mickey Mouse, as well as animations, wallpapers, melodies and horoscopes. For a small, clearly indicated fee, of course.

The specs for LG Disney Mobile 3 include 1.3 megapixel camera, 2″ (176×220px) 262K color internal and 0.96″ (96×64px) monochrome external display, microSD memory card slot, 60MB of user memory, Bluetooth 1.2, USB 2.0, dimensions of 92.5×47×17.6mm, weight of 89gr and 850 mAh battery for 3 hrs of talk and 200 hrs of standby time.

LG Disney Mobile 3 on 3 Italia costs 69 Euro including VAT and it even includes a free access ticket to Disneyland Resort Paris.

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When prototype Sony Ericsson W890 Walkman phone first appeared on Polish auction site, I actually tried to buy it. But I was eventually outbid and didn’t get the phone.

I guess, the guys at Polish Sony Ericsson fansite SE-CEnter.pl were the ones to win the auction. And now they made an extensive review for SE W890 Walkman. I can read a little Polish so here’s what I’d been able to understand from it:

First, I must admit, the numbering -Sony Ericsson W890i - is a pure guess on my part so far, but this phone is a clear successor to the popular W880i Walkman, so don’t think I’m very far off with this.

At 9.6 mm, SE W890 is 2 mm thicker then it’s predecessor and comes with the new Walkman 3.0 software. 2″ (5.2 cm) screen is very clear with a sharp contrast.

In addition to an advanced mp3 player, Walkman W890 had built-in FM radio with RDS and TV tuner as well. While the radio function worked great, the testers were not able to view any TV programs.

The phone has been able to detect TV stations, however any attempts to play them ended in fisako. The reason is not clear yet - might have been software glitch in the prototype, lack of network support for the service or something else.

Music playback quality with MegaBass was very good and advanced Sony Ericsson tricks like TrackID and SensMe did their magic.

The phone came with a very high quality 3D Rally game. Other applications included VideoDJ, PhotoDJ MusicDJ, RSS reader, Push e-mail app, Remote Control (to control apps via PC).

3.2 megapixel camera on Sony Ericsson W890 takes decent pictures and here are some samples made with it:

Sony Ericsson W890 has crashed and rebooted a few times during the 2 week testing period. But this is a prototype phone so you should expected at least some glitches.

Overall, Sony Ericsson W890 Walkman is a very solid phone with tons of great features and functions.

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