Motorola Shows They're Still in The Race

Motorola also had plenty to show off at their Mobile Asia 2008 booth. From their CDMA handsets to the MOTOYUVA entry-level handsets to a 24 karat gold Moto RAZR V8 they were all there. Whatever we saw at GSMA World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, they brought them all out to show their Indian fans that they were still around and kicking.

Among the phones that were on display, was my personal favorite, the Z10 slider. I was hoping to get a look t at it and I was quite pleased that I did. This Banana like slider is a perfect fit for most (if not all) heads. What I mean by that is that the phone is designed to fit and flex a bit to fit your era and cheek. Its 3 megapixel, autofocus camera with xenon flash is better than decent and its scratch resistant display is perfect for clumsy types like myself.Also on display was the E8 with the touch sensitive keypad that is intuitive enough to change in accordance with the music player and camera. What that means is only specific keys will light up depending on the active application. The screen was a bit small (but superbly clear) though, I was told that was due to the scroll wheel. Source

Samsung Phones unveiled at Mobile Asia '08

At "Mobile Asia 2008", Samsung announced the launch of a range of mobile handsets spanning the multimedia, business, lifestyle, and other popular segments. The company also showcased its flagship Soul, Serenata, and Armani models in the lifestyle segment. Under the multimedia segment, Samsung had the SGH-i450, which seeks to give users a mobile theatre experience and 3D surround sound powered by ICE power amplifiers by Bang & Olufsen. This dual-slider features a music wheel for storing, accessing, and juggling music. Based on Symbian S60 OS, the phone allows third-party application hosting and other benefits like document reader/editor and e-mailing. Priced at Rs 15,000, this EDGE-enabled phone has a 2.4-inch LCD screen and an internal memory of 40 GB. Another multimedia phone is the F490, which sports a 3.2-inch TFT screen with a complete touch user interface and a 5MP camera. Next up is a combination of a digital camera and a multimedia phone, the SGH-G800. Figuring in the Metal series, it is a sleek 5MP camera phone with 3x optical zoom. It is equipped with advanced camera features such as face detection, xenon flash, and wide dynamic range (WDR), and supports sharing of images and videos as well as mobile blogging. The phone is priced at Rs 21,799. For business consumers, Samsung unveiled two models including the i550 and i780. Powered by Symbian S60 OS, the i550 comes with a 3MP camera, GPS receiver, and five hotkeys for music, camera, navigation, Internet, and main menu. It features a trackball that allows for 360-degree movement across the screen. With the capability to support Bluetooth audio streaming, the phone is priced at around Rs 25,000. Then, the SGH-i780 is a sleek device featuring a QWERTY keyboard and a full touchscreen. This Windows Mobile 6.0 device features push email, MS Office, MSN Chat, GPS capabilities, an optical mouse, Wi-Fi support, and a 2MP camera. The price for this one hasn't been announced. The D880 is an averagely-priced phone; it's a dual GSM SIM phone with a 3.2MP camera, a 2.3-inch LCD screen, Bluetooth, and FM radio. It is priced at Rs 13,799. Under the mid-range segment, the company announced two phones, the F250 and J210. The F250, presented as a vibrant music phone, has an advanced Music UI, a 1.3MP camera, Bluetooth, a music hotkey, and FM radio. Available in bright colors such as Orange, Green, and White, it is priced at Rs 7,699. Meanwhile, the J210 is a stylish and compact 2MP camera phone with FM recording and Bluetooth music streaming, priced at Rs 6,649. In the category of Lifestyle phones, Samsung showcased its flagship "Soul", a slim, lightweight, stylish phone with features that adapt to the user depending on the application. With Magic Touch by DaCP, navigation indicators on the keypad change according to the user's needs. Only 12.9 mm thin, it is equipped with professional photographic functions including a 5MP camera. It features music library navigation and a digital power amplifier. Two other lifestyle phones, the Serenata and the Armani, were also displayed at Mobile Asia 2008; the Serenata seeks to give the user a full-fledged music experience, while the Armani claims to be the ultimate in style statements.Source

Intel : Low Power Chips to be called "Atom"

Chipmaker Intel has announced naming (branding) its new family of ultra-small, low-power processors for ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) as "Atom".Described by the company as "a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices," "Atom" joins other Intel brands, including Core, Core 2, Celeron, and Xeon. Intel sees a huge market for UMPCs and other small form factor Internet devices; calling its own version of such a device as 'Netbook', a low-cost PC that would cost in the region of $250.
The "Atom" family of processors is based on a new microarchitecture; meant for smaller devices with lower power consumption, Intel said. A typical "Atom" chip is less than 25 square millimeters, with 11 of the chip's dies (slivers of Silicon with 47 million transistors each) capable of fitting into an area that's less than the size of a US penny. Two of the members of the "Atom" family; previously codenamed 'Silverthorne' and 'Diamondville' have already been discussed at length, and are scheduled to ship towards the middle of this year. Both 'Silverthorne' and 'Diamondville' are based on Intel's 45 nanometer chipmaking technology.'Silverthorne' integrates a new low-power state, enabling it to shut down in between processing tasks, thereby reducing power consumption. Meanwhile, 'Diamondville' is said to sport a design much simpler than that deployed by standard Intel chips.Industry analysts are of the view that 'Diamondville' and 'Silverthorne' represent Intel's attempt at selling chips profitably for a whole lot less. In addition, Intel has also announced the "Centrino Atom" processor technology aimed specially at mobile Internet devices. This was formerly code-named Menlow."Centrino Atom" includes the Intel Atom processor, a low power companion chip with integrated graphics, a wireless radio, as well as thinner and lighter designs. Intel envisages tremendous growth for "Centrino Atom" technology in consumer electronics and other gadgets.Source

Intel Wolfdale: Core 2 Duo E8500, E8400 and E8200 Processors

Not so long ago we thought that in early 2008 we will be focusing on comparing the new AMD Phenom processors against the refreshed Intel Penryn manufactured with 45nm technological process. However, these expectations didn’t come true, and both – AMD and Intel – should be blamed for that.It is true, at this time AMD cannot deliver mass quad-core processors working at competitive frequencies. The currently available Phenom models lose even to previous generation quad-core Intel processors, not to mention the more advanced CPUs. It is quite logical that Intel doesn’t have any significant stimulus to refresh their quad-core processor line-up, because there are simply no worthy competitors to the pretty successful Core 2 Quad on old 65nm cores these days. That is why the launch of new Core 2 Quad processors known as Yorkfield has been postponed for an indefinite period of time, at least until February or March 2008. And although Intel has found an excuse – an alleged problem in the upcoming processors caused by EMI in 1333MHz front side bus when these CPUs are used in hypothetical mainboards with 4-layer PCB design – it doesn’t sound convincing at all.As for us, we have to state to our disappointment that it doesn’t make sense to compare Phenom against Penryn, because the former is uncompetitive, and the latter is still illusive and remains only an upcoming solution for the time being.Nevertheless, there are more than enough interesting topics for discussion in the today’s processor market. Although Intel decided to postpone the launch of their quad-core processors on 45nm cores, the Core 2 Duo processor lineup will be refreshed with a few new models. They are going to announce three new processor models with Wolfdale codename within the next few days. They will be Core 2 Duo E8500, E8400 and E8200. These CPUs are based on the revised core manufactured with 45nm process and belong to the same Penryn family as the postponed Yorkfield CPUs. We certainly can’t disregard the arrival of mass Wolfdale processors, which promise to raise the performance bar for Intel’s dual-core solutions to a totally new qualitative level. They feature higher clock speeds, larger L2 cache and a number of other improvements. And the most pleasing thing about them is their cost, set at the same level as that of older Core 2 Duo solutions.So, in the second half of January 2008 Intel is going to massively update their dual-core processor lineup in $160-$260 price range. This particular event became the main topic of our today’s article that will dwell on the new promising Intel processors and the changes they will bring to the mainstream desktop market.Source

A 13.6 Megapixel Digicam by SONY...!!!

Sony's new Cyber-shot DSC-W300 digital camera is expected to be among the industry's most pocketable, high resolution point-and-shoot digital cameras.The camera announced yesterday integrates a 13.6 megapixel CCD imager along with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom lens, a 2.7-inch LCD screen and an eye-level viewfinder in a compact size. With its ultra-hard titanium coating, the model offers a premium look and finish that is highly-resistant to scratches and messy fingerprints.The W300 camera newly features an “extra high-speed” burst mode that can shoot three-megapixel photos at five frames per second, ideal for fast-action shooting of sports, pets or children.In addition to the blur-reducing effects of Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization, the camera also has a new "extra high sensitivity" mode (up to ISO 6400 in this mode only) to help minimize blurry photos when shooting in challenging lighting conditions, such as indoors or at twilight, even without a flash.Sony’s Smile Shutter technology prioritizes the faces of children or adults so that the camera takes the photo at the moment the intended subject smiles. Improved face detection technology can also prioritize child or adult faces as the basis for the camera to apply focus, exposure, white balance and flash color controls for up to eight faces in the camera’s frame.The model’s intelligent scene recognition technology automatically can detect five different types of scenes and optimize the camera settings for those conditions for a better photo. And advanced mode can take two shots almost immediately – one with standard automatic settings and the other with optimized settings.The DSC-W300 camera and optional accessories will be available in the US in May for about $350 USD.Source