Day: February 24, 2006

A Swiss company has published a datasheet for a dual-mode Linux smartphone that also integrates a GPS (global positioning system) receiver, WiFi, and Bluetooth. ImCoSys says its smartphone, a quad-band GSM design with a PDA-like form-factor, will be showcased next month at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.The ImCoSys phone is based on a Texas Instruments OMAP 730 processor, the datasheet says. The same chip was used in another dual-mode Linux phone announced by E28 at 3GSM last month.The ImCoSys phone has 64MB each of RAM and Flash. It also has an SD Card slot, which can be used to load maps or expand storage, the company says. The ImCoSys phone sprouts a plethora of radios, including: * Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with GPRS Class 10 and CSD modems * 802.11b WiFi, with WPA support * Bluetooth 1.2 * GPS receiverThe phone has a PDA-like “transflective” LCD-TFT touchscreen display supporting 262K colors and QVGA (240×320) resolutions. Listed connectivity options include a USB port, and, interestingly, an RS232 serial port. The device also supports external GPS and GSM antennas, the datasheet says.The ImCoSys phone measures 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.7 inches (125 x 64 x 18mm), and uses a lithium-ion battery of unspecified size.On the software side, the ImCoSys phone runs a Linux 2.4.20 kernel, along with user-interface software supporting German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Touted software features include a Web/WAP 2.0 browser, Java runtime (MIDP 2.0), push/pop/smtp email client, SMS/MMS message client, calendar, calculator, world clock, and memo applications. via linuxdevices.com

It seems like a new Portable Media Player is released daily, which is great for consumers and not so great for companies looking to make a dent in the market. Well, JNC is looking to make a mark with the SSF-M810 (and SSF-M805 with 512MB) PMP (via PVP For You). This particular player stands out because of it’s small size, support for downloadable games, console styling, and built-in speaker. With a 2 inch (220×176) TFT LCD Screen, USB 2.0 and an integrated FM Tuner, the JNC unit packs a lot into a small 65g package. It supports WMV, DivX, AVI and MP4 on the video side, while you audio files will enjoy it’s support for MP3, WMA and Ogg. Decent battery life rounds out this unit by sporting 5 hours of video playback and up to 20 hours of audio. via ehomeupgrade.com

“The white letters contrast well with their dark silver background so they’re easy to see. Both the letters and symbols illuminate: white for letters and red for symbols (the Verizon XV6700 illuminates only the letters). Two soft keys sit just above the keyboard so you need not tap the screen or use the front face buttons to activate soft key functions. We like the dedicated Windows Start Menu and OK keys on the bottom row, again reducing the need to whip out the stylus and tap on screen. Should you need to turn on caps lock, press the shift key twice in quick succession. To turn on Fn lock, press the red dot key located in the lower left hand corner twice quickly. When you’re in the phone dialer screen, the 8125 automatically switches the top row to numbers rather than letters so you need not press the Fn key before punching in a number.” Read ths review here:

At the German forum Telefon-Treff you can come across the photos and specs of the upcoming Sony Ericsson phone – a supposedly K800 under the code name Wilma, the heir of the popular K750. The phone has been much rumored about, so sometimes we are suspicious to the info about it. Nevertheless the photo and specs seem to be true, and we’ll find out it on February 28, when the company is rumored to introduce some new mobile phones, including Wilma, at its press conference. The specs:
Standards – GSM and UMTS
2” LCD, QVGA (240×320 pixels), 262K colors
3.2-megapixel camera
Supported audio formats – MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+
Supported video formats – 3GPP, MPEG4 and Real
72-tones polyphony
64 MB internal memory
Slot for Memory Stick Micro cards
Bluetooth, IrDA and USB
Dimensions – 106x47x18 mm
Weight – 115 g