Coming soon: The Sony Ericsson W705

Initially starting life as sub genre of the main product range (for instance the W800 was basically a re-branded K750i), the Sony EricssonWalkman range now commands your attention on its own. The latest addition to the Walkman range, the Sony Ericsson W705 is certainly no different with a spec list that doesn’t look out of place amongst the mobile elite, all packed into a phone that simply oozes class. The slide phone catches your eye with a striking brushed metal finish that looks stunning in silver. This is complimented by a comfortable size that is still small enough not to be a burden but big enough for a pleasurable user experience. But enough about what the phone looks like, with the expected release just over a month away, why should we be getting excited about the W705?

Well first things first, the W705 is clearly a music phone through and through (as if the Walkman branding didn’t give it away!) so what have Sony Ericsson got in store for us? Well, Sony’s award winning audio technology promises to deliver sound quality in its purest form thanks to Clear Bass, Clear Stereo and premium headphones. SensMe lets you create playlists based on mood, Shake control lets you change track or volume with a flick of your wrist, TrackID finds the name and artist from simply recording a few seconds of a track, an FM radio lets you tune in to all your favourite stations and support for the PlayNow arena, Sony Ericsson’s new music store, lets you download the latest tracks straight to your phone. All your music is managed in the Walkman player which lets you shuffle, sort and play all your music and supports a wealth of file formats including MP3 and AAC.

So the W705 has music well and truly covered, but what else is hiding under that smooth, shiny exterior? Well for those who love to browse the internet, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity have got you covered offering high speed internet at the push of a button. What’s more, the excellent web browser is complimented by the ability to stream video from popular sites such as YouTube. If photography is your thing, the 3.2 Megapixelcamera should be more than adequate featuring digital zoom and video recording. Memory on the phone is a respectable 120MB which is expandable up to 8GB (and is likely to arrive with a 4GB card in the box). To round it off, the Sony Ericsson W705 features Bluetooth v2.0 and support for 3D gaming making it an excellent all rounder and much more than just a music phone.

Sony Ericsson F305 coming soon: Taking mobile gaming to the next level

Sony Ericsson’s latest phone, the Sony Ericsson F305, is a phone that delivers a world class handheld gaming experience in a sleek and stylish mobile phone. Gone are the days when dedicated gaming phones were awkward and cumbersome, the F305 is a classy slide phone that comes in a subtle silver case. Taking some of the Sony experience on board with their Playstation heritage and with more than just a nod to the Nintendo Wii, the F305 features full motion sensitive gaming for hours of fun. Swing, shake and swipe your way through a host of different games with Bowling, Fishing and Horse riding all pre-installed on the F305 and further titles set to be available for download.

Away from gaming, theF305 features everything you would expect from a new mobile phoneincluding an impressive 2.0 Megapixel camera with video recording capabilities and an MP3 player withSony Ericsson’s popular TrackID application which finds artist and album information from a short music clip that you record. Hear a song you like, simply open TrackID, record a few seconds and the phone will find out who it’s buy and take you to the music store to download it. Elsewhere this cool compact slider has an FM radio to boost its music potential and despite only having 10 MB of internal memory, is complimented with a memory card slot supporting up to 4GB for storage of extra games and music, not to mention video.

Set for launch in the next couple of months, the F305 sets to be the start of an interesting new twist for mobile gaming. Whether the F series will develop into a gaming range similar to the Walkman W range and Camera C series is unconfirmed but, if the upcoming F305 is anything to go by, it would definitely be an exciting proposition.

Nokia 5800 : Nokia’s first full touchscreen mobile phone!

Just in case the title didn’t give it away, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia’s eagerly awaited first full touchscreen phone, has been launched. The 5800, formerly known as the Tube, was first spotted early last year and even made a cameo in the recent Batman film The Dark Knight before it had even been officially announced which surely got people chomping at the bit to get their hands on it. But why should you care? What’s so special about the 5800? Well it does feel like it’s been in production for an eternity so lets refresh our memories and remind ourselves why the Nokia 5800 is such an exciting newphone.

The Nokia 5800 is Nokia’s first full touchscreen mobile phone (yes we do know they make touchscreen internet tablets and no we don’t count them as proper phones). As such, there was a lot riding on the user experience of the 3.2 inch TFT touchscreen but thankfully it exceeds expectations. The touchscreen is responsive and tactile enough to keep up with even the fastest of fingers but forgiving enough for those who are taking their first steps into the touchscreen world. Of course in 2009, a phone has to try a little harder to get our attention and luckily the 5800 has enough under its bonnet to mix it with the big boys.

The 5800 XpressMusic takes itself seriously as an internet device (possibly drawing from the internet tablet heritage) thanks toHSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity putting high speed web browsing at your finger tips. Couple this with an impressive web browser and the excellent display (with built in accelerometer for rotating the screen) and you’ve got yourself one powerful internet device. Elsewhere, the 5800 supports numerous music and video file formats and comes bundled with an 8GB memory card giving you somewhere to store 1000’s of tracks and hours of video. And if photography is your thing, the 5800 features a 3.2 Megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, Autofocus and digital zoom plus video capture at 30 frames per second. And finally for those of you who like to get out and about, the 5800 has a built in GPSreceiver with Nokia Maps pre-installed.

Have i forgotten anything? Probably. The 5800 is packed full of top of the range features which firmly cement it as one of the phones of 2009 and definite contender for best touchscreen mobile phone. 

Nokia’s Latest Little Gizmo: The Locate Sensor

At CES (the worlds largest consumer electronics tradeshow) 2009 which took place on Jan 12th, Nokia announced a new project cooked up by the Nokia Research Centre, the ‘Nokia Locate Sensor’. A prototype service designed to help ensure you never lose anything. You simply attach a physical wireless location tag (the little green gizmo pictured to the right) to stuff such as your keys or wallet,and if you drop anything or it gets nicked from your pocket the accompanying Nokia Locate Sensor application on yourphone points you in the direction of the item and even tells you how far away it is.

The tiny Locate Sensor tag can be attached and modified to be fixed to any sort of item you can think of and because of its size it can go pretty much unnoticed. The phone application itself will support up to 100 items so you would never be able to use the excuse “sorry I’m late, I couldn’t find my….” ever again.

If you drop something the phone application is designed to automatically alert you and help you hone in on the object within a distance of up to 100 metres. So, how does it work? Well, It transmits a simple signal and doesn’t use GPS to locate the misplaced items we know that much, so it can be used inside and isn’t a battery killer. The actual technology Nokia use is still not mentioned but if we had to guess we’d have to bank on Bluetooth.

Another smart use for Nokia Locate Sensor is that it can be tweaked to work the opposite way round, so if you have a tag on your person you can set it so that if your phone is lost or goes further than say 3 metres away from you, it immediately disables the handset and re-enables it when it re-enters your selected vicinity.

Nokia say it can operate flawlessly up to 18 months before you need to recharge it, but if the tag is made bigger it could theoretically accommodate a bigger battery and longer life. It’s such a simple idea, and innovative to the mobile market. The application looks as if it works brilliantly, if we can believe the news coming out of the tradeshow. It’s definitely the smartest little gadget to make an appearance so far this year… that’s probably not giving it enough credit, as we haven’t even made it to February, however I think you get the point… it’s a great little device to start the year with.

Samsung S8300 spotted: 8 Megapixel Soul anyone?

With two 8.0 Megapixel camera phones already under their belt, you’d think Samsung might kick back and relax. After all, they were the first company to launch an 8.0 Megapixel camera phone in Europe with the Samsung i8510 a definite contender for phone of the year in 2009. But no, hot on this success, Samsung have been busy working of the latest addition to their already impressive range. The Samsung S8300 looks to be a natural upgrade to theSamsung Soul thanks to a slim slider form factor measuring in at just 12.8mm thick. With the Samsung S8300 still under wraps at Samsung HQ and yet to see an official announcement, what else do we know about this newest 8.0 Megapixel camera phone?

Well, firstly the camera is complimented by Autofocus and an LED flash but what else? Expect Face and Smile recognition to also make their way into that sleek exterior as well as high resolution video capture as seen on the Pixon. Away from the camera, the S8300 is an HSDPA mobile phonemeaning high speed web browsing is at your finger tips, though Wi-Fi is unconfirmed at present. GPS is also included though whether it will be the full fat version as seen in the i8510 or only suitable for Geotagging like that on the Pixon is unclear. To round it off, a multimedia player with MP3/ MPEG4 and DivX (high quality video) support plus Bluetooth v2.1 should make the S8300 a formidable multimedia phone.