February traditionally sees a rash of new mobile phones launched, thanks to the annual 3GSM Congress. This year, the event – held for the first time in Barcelona – has attracted nearly 1,000 exhibitors and is expected to welcome 50,000 visitors. Most of the major manufacturers have made announcements at the show on new handsets that will be launched over the next few months.
From Motorola comes the A910, a handset designed for use with BT’s Fusion service. BT Fusion allows you to use a handset like a mobile phone when you are out and about and like a fixed phone when you are at home. The trick the phone uses is its ability to use both traditional GSM mobile networks but also internet telephony services using wi-fi. This means that when you are in a BT Openzone hotspot, you can make fixed rate calls rather than more expensive mobile calls. The A910 will be available from the third quarter of 2006.
Wi-fi also makes an appearance in the new Nokia 6136, which is expected to appear by the middle of 2006. Orange will be the launch customer for the device, which will allow seamless handover of voice and data calls when moving from a cellular to a wireless network and vice versa. The clamshell (i.e. folding) design 6136 will feature quadband GSM for international roaming, a sharp 262k colour screen and built-in FM radio, 1.3 megapixel camera and mini SD card.
Sony Ericsson has updated its 3G offerings with the announcement of the K610i. Weighing in at just 92 grammes, the K610i is testament to how far manufacturers have gone in slimming down bloated 3G phones. Despite its lightness, it crams in a 2 megapixel camera, 262k colour screen and a slot for a Memory Stick Micro card of up to 1 gigabyte.
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The firm has also announced in the last two weeks the launch of the very businesslike M600. The M600 will work on 3G and triband GSM networks but also has a number of features that will particularly appeal to the business traveller – support for various push email solutions, including BlackBerry and Microsoft Exchange Server, as well as onboard PowerPoint, Word and Excel editors and an Adobe PDF viewer. Its QWERTY keyboard (two letters to a key) means the M600 is also much more suitable than a traditional phone for replying to business emails and texts.
Fujitsu-Siemens has extended the functionality of its popular Pocket LOOX PDAs to include a mobile phone in its latest incarnation, the T series. Set to be in the shops in July, the Pocket Loox T crams in everything you would expect from a PDA plus wi-fi and a 2G mobile phone. It will also run on the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, giving access to so-called “push” email, instantly delivered email that has hitherto been the preserve of the BlackBerry. The inclusion of GPS location technology means it will be one of the most fully featured handhelds on the market.