14 DAY TRIAL // Christmas is almost here, and most people are already busy with the holiday shopping season, as well as with making plans for the next year, and, since some of them are also thinking about purchasing new handsets, there are good news for them. During the past week, carriers around the world either launched or announced the future launch of new mobile phones, as well as that of new services, and the list of available options has just got wider for some. Especially for the Canadians, which have now a new wireless carrier operating in the country, with some appealing offerings for them, including the recently launched Backberry Bold 2 from Research In Motion.
Among the handsets that made an appearance on the market during the past week, we can count the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pureness, which is now available for purchase in the United States for a hefty price tag of $990. Wireless carrier AT&T has put on sale the new LG eXpo, a Windows Mobile-powered handset that sports a 1GHz processor inside, while Sprint has launched the BlackBerry Curve 8530 on its airwaves. At the same time, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 has been launched in Russia, the HTC HD2 made an appearance in India, and we've also learned that Vodafone UK plans to launch the Nokia N900 first thing in January, while the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 might arrive on the market in the same time frame too. Moreover, it seems that Nokia N900 might get launched in the UK via Carphone Warehouse on December 26, so even more good news for UK enthusiasts here.
On the new launches segment, we should start with the two new GreenHeart phones from Sony Ericsson, the Elm and Hazel, which were unveiled with the entire suite of specifications they will arrive on the market with. Samsung announced the commercial availability of its 4G LTE dongle, mainly aimed for the world's first LTE network, deployed by TeliaSonera in Sweden and Norway. Broadcom announced this week the sampling of a new mobile multimedia processor that can offer 1080p video recording and playback capabilities, and RIM delivered the BlackBerry IM & Email Service Plan and the BlackBerry Curve 8520 to the Hong Kong market via China Mobile.
Other launches, this time in the services area, included the arrival of the BlackBerry App World in Australia and New Zealand, the carrier billing T-Mobile has put in place for the Android Market, as well as the upcoming availability of the Nokia Messaging push email service in Indonesia. We should not forget the fact that Palm has launched a public beta version of its Ares development environment, offering those willing to build apps for its webOS platform the possibility to do so directly from their desktop browser. The company also announced that it would deliver a new version of the platform in the near future, namely webOS 1.3.5, and showed rather weak sales during the third quarter of the year, something that cannot be said about Research In Motion's ones, that's for sure.
This week has been a pretty interesting one in the mobile phone rumors area, especially with all that batch of news regarding the emergence of Nexus One by HTC, also said to be the Google Phone. Running under the Android 2.1 operating system, the phone seems to be none other than the already spotted HTC Passion / Dragon, yet it managed to turn the blogosphere upside down. It should bring a new version of Android, which has been already spotted in a series of screenshots, and it is also expected to be marketed by Google itself, with no carrier support included in the equation. We've seen photos and videos with it available, along with FCC approval and GCF certification, and a wide range of other tidbits on it, but, since we've been busy all week with it, we won't get into details this time.
Still in the rumors area, we should mention two concerning Verizon Wireless, which is expected to soon announce the launch of at least three handsets, namely Palm Pre Plus, Motorola Devour and the Windows Mobile-based LG VS750, while also getting ready for iPhone's arrival on its network, not to mention a possible Palm Pixi, which just passed through FCC this week. The carrier has relaunched the BOGO promotion for the HTC DROID Eris you might have learned about before (a handset that is also included in a special offer at Best Buy), and also worked hard on enhancing its network around the US. Moreover, Big Red announced the launch of a new software solution for its users, V CAST Media Manager, added Verizon Wi-Fi in its lineup for mobile broadband users, and showed what Motorola DROID can deliver to its business customers.
Google's Android operating system also popped up a lot in the news during this week, especially the Android 2.1 version, which should arrive on the Nexus One by HTC, and which will also be delivered to HTC Hero and Samsung Moment users on Sprint. Those interested in downloading Android 2.1 wallpapers can do so, and they can also enjoy VoIP on their Android device via a new version of Nimbuzz. Android is said to be poised for growth once again, and might also find itself as a target for cybercriminals, while also making an appearance in the future on new handsets, such as the Motorola Backflip for AT&T, the Motorola Opus One with iDEN connectivity, or China-bound Motorola MT710 and Zeppelin, not to mention the nice looking HTC Legend, or the Xperia X10, which just passed through FCC with T-Mobile frequencies on board.
We've also had a pretty busy week in the applications area, starting Monday, when Yfrog made an appearance for Android and BlackBerry devices, and continuing the entire week, with an updated Nokia Messaging for Social Networks Beta, a new SPB Weather 2.0 for Symbian, or MapQuest 4 Mobile for BlackBerry. The BOLT browser was announced as being loaded on future AllviewMobile devices on the European market, Windows Mobile users have seen updated SPB Weather and SPB Mobile Shell versions, along with a SBSH PhoneWeaver 2, Spotify for Symbian also got updated, BeejiveIM for BlackBerry 2.0 was launched, while the Android Market passed the 16,000 applications mark. The crowdsourced navigation solution waze saw a holiday version, with a great deal of nice surprises for its users, and one should expect for the total number of downloads of mobile apps to reach five billion by 2014.
Some firmware updates also emerged during this week, starting with two solutions from Nokia for its 5530 XpressMusic and N85 handsets, HTC HD2 received an SMS Function Update from its maker, as well as an SD Card Storage Capacity Update, HTC Touch2 got an update for its Weather Updates feature, while HTC Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2 got an update for handwriting recognition. These are some of the latest Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets launched on the market, and, although the OS is losing ground, they are certainly appealing to users, at least the HD2. Not much else that can be said about the past week, except maybe for some new partnerships, like this one between Nokia and ST-Ericsson, or one between T-Mobile, Ubiquisys and Huawei aimed at femtocell testing. Next week will be a shorter one, since Christmas is upon us, but we can still hope for some exciting news, so stay tuned.
