SmartPhoneToday: Special Reports: Special Report: Hot 3GSM Smartphones

Mobile TV, video, music, mob-e-mail, dual-mode, presence, and convergence are some of the hottest topics and buzz words at this year's 50,000 people-strong 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain. A bevy of new handsets were introduced at the show as well. Below we survey a few in the smartphone and communicator categories.

Hot smartphones include Sony Ericsson's latest Walkman phone, that puts music squarely front and center with a 4 GB hard disk drive, a sleek High Tech Computer (HTC)-built Pocket PC Phone for Orange , sure to land elsewhere under a different moniker, and a new Windows smartphone from ASUS.

Launched by Research In Motion with its BlackBerry series and successfully emulated and built upon by Palm with the Treos, communicators are compact smartphones with QWERTY thumb-keyboards. While messaging is the name of the game for these devices, many are no slouch when it comes to multimedia, 3G and other services and features.

There is Hewlett-Packard's newest iPAQ Mobile Messenger, the hw6900 series, of course, which was announced the other day (reports now say this Pocket PC Phone should find a home at Cingular Wireless this spring, followed by Sprint PCS at a later date), as well as the upcoming Samsung SGH-i320, a GSM version of the Motorola Q—previously introduced only in a high-speed EV-DO CDMA configuration for Verizon Wireless in the U.S—and a new Pocket Loox series; Fujitsu-Siemens first smartphone.

Samsung SGH-i320
At 4.37 x 2.32 x 0.45 inches (111 x 59 x 11.5 millimeters) and 3.35 ounces (95 grams), the Windows Mobile 5.0 SGH-i320 is even smaller than the almost RAZR-like - for a Pocket PC Phone - Motorola Q. It is a tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) phone with 2.5G EDGE support and 120 MB of memory, a 240 x 320 pixel QVGA display, microSD slot, stereo speakers, speakerphone, Bluetooth and a 1.3 megapixel camera. While the keys are reportedly a little small, they're raised in the middle to make typing easier. Estimated time of arrival for this model and the price are still unknown.



Motorola Q
While the Verizon version of the Q should finally hit the streets within the next couple of months, folks in much of the rest of the world as well as T-Mobile and Cingular in the U.S. will be happy to hear a GSM edition is in the works as well—with Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) broadband - 300 to 400 kbps (about the same as EV-DO).

They won’t be happy to hear that the GSM/UMTS Q likely won’t arrive until 2007, however. Motorola says operator trials (in Europe) won't even happen until sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.



If the GSM edition is anything like the Verizon version, then it'll measure about 4.6 x 2.5 x 0.45 inches and will feature a QVGA display like the Samsung SGH-i320; in addition to a 1.3 megapixel camera with photo lighting for picture and video, 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB of ROM, the increasingly popular miniSD slot for storage expansion, and a 5-way navigation button and thumb wheel. Additional features of the Motorola Q include stereo speakers and Bluetooth for personal area networking (connecting to headsets, printers).

Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX T800 Series
Also at 3GSM, Fujitsu-Siemens officially took the wraps off its Pocket LOOX T800 series—yet another Windows Mobile 5.0 communicator. Set for European release this July, the Pocket PC Phone sports a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution display, just like Palm's Treo 700w. There's also a 416MHx Intel XScale CPU, 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM like the Motorola Q.



The 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.8-inch, 6.7-ounce T800 integrates both 3G cellular (UMTS) and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) broadband: By contrast, Palm's Treo 700w - another Pocket PC Phone, by the way - requires an SD card to gain WLAN capability. A T810 model doesn't come with a 2 megapixel digital camera, while a T830 includes one with auto focus.

Sony Ericsson W950i
Last week, Sony Ericsson introduced its own version of the communicator, the M600—a Symbian OS smartphone with a UIQ interface. At 3GSM, it unveiled its latest Walkman phone, the W950i. From pictures, the W950 looks similar to the M600, but with a keypad instead of QWERTY thumb-keyboard. It still has UMTS 3G broadband, however.



Like the multimedia-orientated Samsung SGH-i300x and upcoming Nokia N91, the W950i boasts a media-storage friendly 4 GB hard drive. The W950i, as a UIQ smartphone, features a touch screen to simplify navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or albums. It supports the MP3 and AAC music formats.

The 4.2 x 2.3 x 0.6-inch (106 x 54 x 15-millimeter), 4-ounce (112-gram) handset's QVGA, 262k screen measures 2.6 inches. It has a stereo FM radio, Bluetooth with streaming audio support, Opera 8.0 browsing, an RSS reader and USB 2.0 for connectivity and charging. Sony Ericsson says the W950i delivers 10 hours of music playback.

The W950i is due in the third quarter in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions. Mainland china will see the handset as the W950c. No word yet on North American availability.

Stereo Bluetooth Headset HBH-DS970
Unveiled with the W950i, this new headset can stream audio in stereo. Due in the second quarter for an undisclosed price, the Stereo Bluetooth Headset HBH-DS970 connects wirelessly to a mobile phone, not just Walkman models, and weighs less than an ounce.



Of course, you can listen to calls as well as music. Multipoint functionality enables users to hear audio files from a computer, PDA or other Bluetooth devices while remaining connected to their mobile phone. Using a display hanging around the neck, the handset can stay in the pocket while the user handles calls, chooses music or adjusts the volume.

Orange SPV M600
Taiwanese original design manufacturer HTC is perhaps the most prolific Pocket PC Phone builder on the planet. You can now add the SPV M600 to the list. Due for release from European carrier Orange at a later date, the 4.3 x 2.3 x 0.7-inch (108 x 58 x 18-millimeter), 5.3-ounce (150-gram) Windows Mobile 5.0 SPV M600 is a quad-band GSM/EDGE phone with 802.11/bg Wi-Fi. It offers a full-size SD slot, which seems to be becoming a rarity these days.



There's also Bluetooth 2.0, a 200 MHz CPU, 64 MHz of RAM, 128 MHz of ROM, a 2 megapixel camera, and a QVGA 2.8 inch touch display . The SPV M600 gets 5 hours of talk and 190 hours of standby time from its battery. Just about the only feature missing from this device is 3G, but Wi-Fi could go a long way towards making up for that, especially if an operator can enable VoIP on it.

Expect to see the SPV M600 from other carriers under different names, perhaps even in the United States.

ASUS P305
ASUSTeK Computer's P305 is the successor to the delayed P505 communicator, and not much else is known about it; except that the P305 is a 3G (UMTS) smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and it can handle video calls. There's also Bluetooth 1.2 and IrDA infrared; not much to talk about right now. Windows Media Player 10 Mobile means MP3, AMR, AAC, WAV and WMA audio file compatibility as well as streaming MPEG-4 video. Reports say it'll ship in June for about $500, upon successful completion of 3G testing.



Nokia 6136
And then there was Nokia's Wi-Fi/cellular 6126, only the second Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) handset, after Samsung SGH-T709, to arrive with an estimated time of release.



UMA or dual-mode phones can automatically detect the fastest and most cost-effective network available, cellular or Wi-Fi, at home or on the road. When a user with a UMA-enabled handset - like the 6136 - enters a WLAN, for example, the phone switches his call from cellular to a Voice over IP connection. For more info, see Nokia Launches Dual-Mode 6136 Flip Phone.

We'll report more on all of these smartphones as details emerge.

Related Links:



Microsoft, Motorola in Music Pact
iPAQ hw6900 Official: HP 's Smartphone Line Evolves
Nokia Launches Dual-Mode 6136 Flip Phone
Microsoft Completes Push E-Mail Puzzle
PalmSource Emerges From Limbo with Linux OS


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