Recently in Smartphones Category

During the recently concluded CES in Las Vega, Palm finally unveiled their latest smartphone, the Palm Pre.

Taking a new approach in designing this smartphone, the Palm Pre integrates a slide-out QWERTY keypad to complement its 3.1-inch touchscreen display which is not usually common in Palm devices. It likewise features a 3-megapixel camera with flash, HSDPA connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR, proximity and light sensor, accelerometer, 8GB internal memory, and runs on their latest mobile operating system, the WebOS.

Palm’s new OS is a huge improvement in terms of visual appeal when compared to their earlier applications, but the jury is still out as to how successful as a platform it will be especially when compared to the iPhone and Android. The WebOS makes use of CSS, XHTML and JavaScript making it compatible with a wide variety of applications, and will likewise be able to connect directly to an app store that Palm will be launching soon dubbed as the App Catalog. Sadly though, only US residents will get a chance to own one during the early part of this year. The Palm Pre will become available sometime during the first half of 2009 exclusively on Sprint. A Palm Pre GSM version for other market is expected to be released once it makes its debut in the US. Hopefully, that will happen sooner than later because the last thing Palm needs is to follow in the footsteps of the XPERIA X1 and lose whatever interest and fan base it has gained during its announcement due to a delayed release.

The first ever Windows Mobile-powered smartphone from Sony Ericsson maybe considered as a successful venture for the company into the world of QWERTY-enabled touchscreen phones, but it seems that not all is well between Sony Ericsson and their XPERIA X1 manufacturer, HTC. Word is that Sony Ericsson is in talks with Mobinova regarding the production of their next XPERIA phone. There are no specifics as to what the next XPERIA phone will come with as this latest news is yet to be confirmed as well. For what it’s worth, if indeed there will be a changing of the guard as far as the manufacturer of the XPERIA series is concerned, we’re hoping that it will lead to a considerable reduction in overall price since the X1 is a tad bit too expensive, in my opinion, to become a certified hit in the market. Anyway, we’ll probably get confirmation on whether this bit of news is legit or not in the coming months. Rest assured, we’ll keep you guys posted on the latest developments regarding this matter.

Consumer Reports has released their January 2009 issue, and based on their study, the Samsung BlackJack II is the no. 1 smartphone as far as the US market is concerned. This QWERTY-equipped Windows Mobile-powered mobile phone managed to beat not only the T-Mobile G1, but also the more popular iPhone 3G. Actually, neither of the two even made it to the top five which was composed of the T-Mobile Wing, Motorola Q9C, T-Mobile Shadow, and BlackBerry Pearl Flip. The first Android-based phone and iPhone both were tied at 6th place. I guess this just goes to show that consumers still value form, function and price over design and hype. Of course, this listing applies to the US and being in the Philippines, we definitely have our own set of smartphones to choose from. My personal top five picks for local market are as follows (in no particular order): 1. Nokia E71 2. Samsung BlackJack II 3. iPhone 3G 4. Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 5. Motorola Q9 How about you guys? What’s your mythical five smartphone line-up?

Those who love the form factor and general features of the Nokia E71 but can’t afford its somewhat hefty price tag will be happy to know that the Nokia E63 is now available locally for just P14,200.

With its slightly toned down set of features, the big question on everybody's mind is if it's worth it. It actually really depends. I don’t mind so much the lower megapixel count of the integrated camera, but the lack of HSDPA connectivity might be an area of concern especially for those who are planning to use it as a 3.5G modem of sorts to partner with their laptop. However, I figure that the inclusion of WiFi might prove to be sufficient enough for others. More over, at its price point, this has got to be the most affordable QWERTY-enabled device to come from Nokia. Besides, the Nokia E63’s feature set is actually pretty decent on its own. It may not be as loaded as the E71, but it’s definitely good enough to serve its target market.

We’re a bit saddened with the news that the Nokia 6260 slide won’t be released in the local market by Nokia Philippines, but upon hearing about this new model, we quickly got over our depression. The Nokia N97 is the new flagship model from the Finnish company. It comes with a 3.5-inch 640x360 touchscreen display with tactile feedback, 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss glass lens, slide out QWERTY keypad, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, 32GB internal memory and support for additional storage of up to 16GB via microSD. This marks the continuing evolution of Nokia's touchscreen phones and the first time an Nseries mobile phone featured a QWERTY keypad. While it does lack DVB-H technology that’s found in the N96, I’m sure most users wouldn’t mind that small sacrificial lamb for the N97's existing feature set. Here's a short promotional video for the N97 to get you even more excited for 2009. It’s expected to begin shipping in the first half of 2009 with a €550 (roughly P34,500) price tag attached to it excluding tax and subsidies. With its impressive line of features, I’m sure aspiring N96 and 5800 XpressMsuic phone owners will now think twice before making any hasty purchases from now until mid next year. While there's still no certainty if it will make it to the local market, I'm pretty optimistic that this one won't suffer the same fate as the 6260 slide. Let's just hope that when it does, its price won't even come close to the SRP of the XPERIA X1 so that more of us can get to enjoy this new beauty.

We’ve got good news and bad news for all your Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 hopefully owners out there. The good news is that the XPERIA X1 is now available in Sony Ericsson concept stores which means its official price is out as well. The bad news is that it’s higher than what we were expecting. Its SRP is P42500 to be exact; much more expensive than a 3G iPhone 8GB prepaid kit or a Samsung Omnia, but still cheaper than an HTC Touch Pro. On a similar note, Sony Ericsson has launched two new panels for the XPERIA X1. The Facebook panel allows users to seamlessly integrate their Facebook account with their mobile phone. It even comes with call to contacts functionality. The Windows Live panel, on the other hand, provides you with an easy way to sync and import your Windows Live contacts to your XPERIA X1’s phonebook. It also gives you an easy access to Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail. These two new exciting panels that will definitely enable you to get the most out of your XPERIA X1. So now that the XPERIA X1 is finally out, will you be getting yours soon or will you be waiting for something better to come out in 2009?

With most mobile phones featuring internet browsing capabilities, choosing which phone offers the best mobile internet experience is a pretty daunting task. It’s a good thing though that Gizmodo has come out with a very juicy comparison to help us out. It may be a very limited comparison leaving out the likes of the HTC Touch Pro and XPERIA X1 out of the picture, but it is, nevertheless very informative. As you can see with their scores, the iPhone is still the best among the rest despite lacking Flash support. Garnering a B+ score is the HTC G1 with the Android OS while both the BlackBerry Bold and Nokia E71 got a B-. The table below shows how all the phones fared using a 3G connection. Page rendering is denoted by a Poor to Excellent rating while the color (green is good; red is poor) takes into account both speed and page rendering accuracy. This second table show how each phone performs under a WiFi connection. All-in-all, it was a pretty interesting showdown. Some lived up to their expectation while some failed miserably. Safe to say, if mobile internet browsing is your kind of thing, then it seems that it’s best to go with the iPhone albeit lacking support for flash. For more details about the results and how they conducted the test, you can check out Gizmodo. How about you guys? Which mobile phone do you think provides the best mobile internet experience?

It looks like Apple’s venture into the mobile phone biz is finally paying some dividends as they've managed to dislodge RIM from the no. 2 spot as far as 3rd quarter smartphone sales are concerned.

Apple had 17.3 % market share which was good enough to beat RIM’s 15.2%. Nokia is still at the top of the pack with 38.9% which was 12.5% lower than their performance last year. Microsoft was likewise booted out of the top three and is now in fourth spot with just 13.6% market share. Another interesting statistic for Q3 was the rise in smartphone sales despite the slowdown in the regular mobile phone market. The cellphone market growth was down to just 3% while smartphone sales grew to 28% from a year ago amounting to 40M units. Will Apple make it to the top spot? I highly doubt it and even with their brilliant performance in Q3, their current position isn't the safest of leads. Considering that the BlackBerry Bold has yet to become available, RIM may still have what it takes to outperform Apple in the last quarter of 2008. Based on the results of Q3 sales, it seems that the smartphone industry is a worthy business to get into, and despite its exclusivity and relatively high price, the iPhone is still a huge cash cow. I wonder if Apple will consider releasing other variants of the iPhone to further improve on their mobile phone standing. How about an iPhone Nano, perhaps? It's highly unlikely, but just some food for thought to ponder on.

The Nokia E71 has been touted as one of the best E-series phones to come from the Finnish company, but it's relatively expensive when compared to the other previous models Nokia has released in the past couple of months. So as to offer everyone in the market a chance to own and enjoy the benefits of the E71's great form factor as well as some of its stellar features, Nokia has announced the E63. It looks almost like an identical twin of the E71 albeit lacking the sopshitication as it trades in the steel accents for ordinary plastic. Aside from the external changes, it likewise dumps the 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, GPS and HSDPA 3.6Mbps connectivity for a more modest 2-megapixel camera and GPRS/EDGE connectivity feature set. Sure, the lack of HSDPA connectivity might be a bummer but at least it still comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, and the same reliable battery to make it a decent buy at its more affordable price of $255 which is roughly just P12K++ as opposed to the P23K SRP of the E71. This is, of course, just my assumption of how much it would probably cost, but let me just stress how its price will play a key role if the E63 has any chance at all in succeeding the local market. No word though on when it will become available in the Philippines, but I'm betting it might make a debut just in time for a post-holiday shopping spree. So if I were you, I'd go easy on the expenses this holiday season because you never really know what goodies lie in store when 2009 finally arrives.

Sad news for those who we're planning to get their Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 phones on the 14th. We've just been informed that the release has been moved to a later date, November 28 to be exact. The expected price, unfortunately, has also changed due to the depreciation of the Philippine Peso and we don't have confirmation yet as to how much it might now cost. Hopefully, it won't cross the P50K threshold and the release won't be prolonged any longer. Anyway, here's a treat for those waiting for some actual photos of the XPERIA X1. These are some of the shots that I took of the XPERIA X1 that was loaned to me so you can have a better idea of what it really looks like from almost every angle. Here's a side-by-side comparison with a Nokia 6300 and an iPod Touch. While I so wanted to compare it to a 3G iPhone, I don't have one at the moment so the next best thing available was my iPod Touch. As you can see, they're almost all the same length, but the XPERIA X1 is noticeably thicker. As for as XPERIA X1's display is concerned, it strikes just the right balance between brightness and richness of color. You might also notice in some of the pictures that the chrome finish and touchscreen are a bit of a dust and fingerprint magnet so that might be a point of concern for those who are obsesively compulsive about cleanliness of their gadgets. That's it for now. Watch out for our full review in one of the upcoming issues of Mobile Philippines.