mobile phones

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC today announced the S740, a follow up to the S730 but with the design of the Diamond, minus the touch screen.

The S740 has the back of the Diamond, with many angles that make shapes that appear reminiscent of, well, diamonds. It features a slide out QWERTY keyboard for quick messaging. It sports a 2.4 inch TFT-LCD screen with backlight LEDs and QVGA resolution. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard and has a 528 MHz processor and 256 MB RAM. It operates on HSDPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz and

Nokia today unveiled their new N85 which will replace the N81. The N79, an upgrade from the N78, was also introduced.

Like its predecessor, the N85 is a slider. Its camera has been upgraded to 5 megapixels (N81 had a 2 megapixel camera). The N85 is also equipped with GPS for directions, mapping and geotagging photos. The screen has been upgraded from a 2.4" LCD (color TFT) to a 2.6" AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode). A big advantage of OLED displays is that they require no backlighting element and thus use far less power. That being said, the N85 will be capable of as much as 28 hours

After accidentally releasing some photos and videos of its new Treo Pro smartphone yesterday, Palm officially unveiled its new device today. So now that more details are known...

The Treo Pro was designed with the needs of both business professionals and personal users in mind. According to Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer, Palm, Inc., "Businesses want the control and savings that Windows Mobile affords, in an innovative and elegant package that keeps their

AT&T and LG today announced the availability of their new multimedia device, the LG Invision. The Invision will be the third device to offer AT&T Mobile TV, and at about just 4" x 2" x .5", will be the smallest to do so.

The Invision runs on AT&T's 3G network, which allows it to reach speeds of up to 1.4 megabits per second. The phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera and is capable of Video Share calling. It includes AT&T Music, which gives the user access to downloadable music from eMusic, Napster To Go and

Expansys, a UK based Internet retailer of smartphones and handheld devices has put RIM's Blackberry 8220 flip phone up on its site for pre-order before RIM has even announced the phone. Apparently it is just a Blackberry with a clamshell design.

The 8220 features both an internal and external display. The external is 160 x 128 pixels and allows you to quickly preview messages while the internal is 2.6" 240 x 320 pixels. It features a Sure Type keyboard like the Pearl. It has a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, 5x digital zoom and an LED flash,

Earlier today Palm accidentally displayed several photos and videos of their new Treo Pro (formerly thought to be the Treo 850) smartphone on their website. As per what always happens on the internet, the media was quickly snatched up before Palm had a chance to pull it down, and can now be found across the web. This is the second flub within a week for Palm. Last week an internal presentation was accidentally leaked.

The highly anticipated Treo Pro is the newest incarnation of the company's popular line of Windows Mobile handsets. The Pro is expected to be available soon and will most likely cost a bit more than the $99 Centro. According to the leaked presentation the Treo Pro will run on Windows Mobile 6.1. It will

Beginning today Sprint will be offering Motorola's new MOTORAZR VE20 clamshell phone. The phone runs on Sprint's Mobile Broadband Network and comes with a plethora of entertainment applications including Sprint TV, Radio and Music Store. It also comes with NFL Live Mobile which gives you

access to audio broadcasts of all regular season games. It will also have audio/video streams of eight games beginning this November plus a live stream of the NFL Network, which is good news for fantasy football players. The VE20 also has Sprint Picture MailSM and Video mail. It has a 2.0 megapixel

The latest company to jump on the corn bandwagon, Samsung will unveil its new E200 Eco mobile phone today in Beijing. The phone's entire case will be made entirely from bioplastics - plastics derived from renewable sources such as vegetable oils and starches. Samsung will be using corn starch. This may or may not be a step in the right direction as the biodegradability of bioplastics can vary greatly and corn derived products have not yet been proven to be more eco-friendly (In fact, some argue that they hurt the environment because forests are being cut down to plant corn, which is now a lucrative business).

Along with the W510 and F268, the E200 is the third eco-friendly phone released by Samsung this year. The phones' chargers no longer use an environmentally harmful flame retardant, which is a good thing (as long as there is an eco-friendly retardant in its place). Samsung is also using production

Sony Ericsson today announced the launch of its new T700 phone. It is a continuation of the T610 line and is very slim at just 10mm thick. It is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera, self-portrait mirror and has a 2 inch TFT display. The T700 has stereo speakers and comes with a color matched headset. It also comes with a 512MB memory card that is expandable. The camera can record video and has up to 3X digital zoom. It is also capable of video calling (depending on your operator of course). The T700 allows for high speed sharing, either through your operator network or via Bluetooth.

According to Sven Totté, Head of Marketing for the design category at Sony Ericsson, the phone is "sleek and shiny, the slim elegance of the T700 gives users a premium experience at a mid-range

On Tuesday, NTT DoCoMo along with Mitsumi Electric Co Ltd unveiled their new "intelligent" battery pack at the Wireless Japan 2008 conference, which is being held from the 22nd to the 24th. The battery pack's existing protection circuit module was modified with an 8 bit microprocessor that will detect battery deterioration, measure remaining battery level and manage other information such as current, voltage and temperature. This information is stored in the battery itself and accessed later, even if the battery is used in a different phone. The battery can also notify users of the time and date of previous charges, when it needs to be charged again, and whether or not it should be replaced or taken to professionals to for assessment.

The innovation was developed in response to explosions and fire accidents involving Li-ion batteries over the past several years. According to Kazuhiko Takeno, director in charge of technology promotion,