Camera Phones Plaza

TV on your mobile is the next big thing, or so they say. I’m not talking little clips of this and that, either, but full blown live programmes, just as you’d expect to see on an ordinary telly.

Virgin Mobile is first out of the starting blocks with real broadcast TV to your mobile with its exclusive Lobster 700TV. Inevitably Virgin Mobile has coined the word ‘tellyphone’ though this only covers part of the deal, as TV is coupled with DAB digital radio.

TrustedReview made a review of this device and here are some of their conclusions. What’s doubly interesting about the Lobster 700TV is that it is a Windows Mobile Smartphone – Virgin Mobile’s first. Now, my initial thought in this respect is that there was a conflict here. Live TV is a consumer focussed offering, while Windows Mobile Smartphones are aimed more at professional users or at consumers who are keen on keeping a handle on their lives with Outlook PC sync.

As already noted, this is a HTC made device, and usually that company does a good job when it comes to build, but here things feel a little less solid than usual. The casing looks like the plastic it is, and the numberpad buttons, while nice and large, have a lot of movement in them, almost as though they might come off.

Bluetooth is built in but is neither infrared nor Wi-Fi (the latter is still rare for Windows Mobile Smartphones). The handset is Tri-band GSM, and there is a 1.3 megapixel camera on the back with neither flash nor self portrait mirror to give its low megapixel count a lift. HTC could easily have made the large silver surround for the lens double as a self portrait mirror but chose instead to inlay grooves into most of it.

Nonetheless, with the handset reporting 71MB of available storage out of the box, if you have any intention playing digital music through Windows Media Player you are going to want to add memory.

The expansion medium selected is microSD cards. Regular readers will know I am not the greatest fan of this format because it is so very tiny. I’m doubly irritated in the case of the Lobster 700TV to find that the slot is not only under the battery but also under your SIM card. Yep, you need to power down, take the battery out and take you SIM out to swap cards. What on Earth is HTC thinking of, designing a memory expansion system like this when end users are likely to want to hot swap cards to get music in and out of their handset?

Still I guess what you really want to know about is the TV and DAB radio capabilities and performance. The service comes courtesy of BT Movio. TV-wise you get BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and E4. But note: Channel 4 is just showing its Short Cuts service, a made for mobile TV channel, and the BBC service is available only on a 12 month trial basis. Some American, film and sports content will be missing according to BT’s announcement of its Movio service.

The conclusion is that the guys at trustedreviews are in two minds about the Lobster 700TV. Yes, it has all the capabilities of a Windows Mobile Smartphone, with TV and DAB radio thrown in. But the number of TV stations it handles is small – which is why they’ve given it such a low value rating - and you can’t really see yourself wanting to squint at its screen for long. Surely nobody is that addicted to TV that they can’t video something to watch later on a bigger screen?

Read full review on trustedreview.

A recent FCC filing provides evidence that the upcoming slider phone is almost ready to ship to US carriers.

The RIZR shares several features with its flip-phone KRZR parallel, including a 2-megapixel camera, EDGE broadband, a microSD card slot, and an improved interface for elements such as the address book.

Motorola has said that the RIZR Z3 should be released to cellphone service providers before the end of 2006 and will compare in price to the original cost of the RAZR. Click through for phone images from the FCC document.

Via ministryoftech.

After rumours appeared about LG launching a White Chocolate, yesterday LG announced that its most popular phone will be available in Wine Red color. The phone will be launched global, however, no word on date of release.

Via techfresh.

For many of us, an $800 mobile phone is a pretty large investment. However, there some who's bank account allows them to purchase some real "jewel phone" which, beside special features, are made of materials only for high-class. Here are some of this handset models.

Black Diamond and White Pearl
Are the names of two very interesting devices designed by Jaren Goh, which will be soon launched by VIPN, even if initial rumours connected these phones with Sony Ericsson. The color is shiny black, and the materials of which is made impress from the first moment.

Black Diamond is made of titanium combined with policarbonate, with a mirror-style finishing and diamonds. A touch pad is used instead of the usual keypad. The lighting of this touch pad also contributes to the classy look of this phone.

Read more on the Black Diamond here.

Goldvish Illusion
But if you really want to impress, the Goldvish Illusion is the perfect way. The design of this phone is made by Emmanuel Gueit, the head designer of Goldvish, which is a known name especially in jewelry and expensive watches industry. The handset is hand-made in Switzerland of 18 karats gold (regular gold, white and pink) and decorated with diamonds (of course, they will give you quality certificates for all these diamonds).

The prices for these phones start from 18.950 Euro up to 120.000 Euro (for a version completly covered with diamonds). They also have a special edition of 100 handsets available only at the Millionaire Fair in Cannes of 145.000 Euro.

However, the flag-ship of Goldvish is a masterpiece called "Million de la Nuit". This is covered with over 100 diamonds (D/E color and VVS-1 clarity) and is available for...hold tight...1 million Euro (about 1.3 million dollars). Goldvish will only sell 3 of these handsets and if you want one, you'd better hurry because 2 of them are already sold (to a businessman in Hong-Kong and to a Russian billionaire).

Read more on the Goldvish Illusion here.

Diamond Crypto Smartphone
This handset's price is about the same with the Goldvish Illusion, about 1.300.000 dollars, but is targeted at people who care very much about their privacy. Why? Because it has different protections and filters that makes your conversation 100% safe. It also uses 256 bytes encryption for conversations between two users. The encryption keys are default, but they also can be changed by the user. The handset uses EDA (Encrypted Document Access) that protects the files with a password. E-mails and attachements can also be protected.

Read more on the Diamond Crypto Smartphone here.

This handset's price is about the same with the Goldvish Illusion, about 1.300.000 dollars, but is targeted at people who care very much about their privacy. Why? Because it has different protections and filters that makes your conversation 100% safe. It also uses 256 bytes encryption for conversations between two users. The encryption keys are default, but they also can be changed by the user. The handset uses EDA (Encrypted Document Access) that protects the files with a password. E-mails and attachements can also be protected.

The phone is based on a Windows CE platform that uses a 266 Mhz Motorola MX21 processor. It has 64 MB memory and another 64 MB Flash memory, a 262k 2.2" touchscreen display at a 320x240 pixels resolution. The handset also has an MP3 player, a Microsoft Word document viewer and 4000 contacts can be stored. Syncronisation with the computer is made through ActiveSync.



However the advanced encrypting technology and its features are not the main reason for the 1.3 megadollars price. The phone is made of 950 platinum, the logo and the navigation key are made of pink 18 karats gold, while the lateral sides are decorated with 25 diamonds rows(of which 5 are blue) and can be customized with the owner's name or the company name. The front side of the keypad is made of hand engraved platinum. The scroll key is made of a half a karat blue diamond and so are the side keys and the on/off button.

The buyer will also be handed a platinum decorated leather case, a hand-decorated ivory box and certificates for all the diamonds on the phone. An interesting detail is that the ivory box, when opened will play a song chosen by the lucky owner.