Mobile Phone Blog:

I’m in the midst of pricing up a new PC, right, and part of it’s because I finally want a PC I can do the whole gaming thing on (‘cos my current PC uses onboard graphics and is generally a bit rubbish). So, thanks to scooting about trying to find a decent rig that won’t cost me an arm, a leg, and the soul of my firstborn, I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about liquid-cooled PCs.

Brilliant timing, then, ‘cos according to The Inquisitr, NEC has just announced the world’s first liquid-cooled smartphone. It’s called the NEC Medias X, and since liquid-cooling’s been a thing in computers since as far back as 1982 (with the Cray-2), I suppose it was inevitable it’d end up in phones one day. So, what’s the crack? (more…)

I’m really getting excited about seeing more of the upcoming Sailfish OS. We’ve seen a load of stuff about it already, but it turns out that there’s a big announcement coming very soon…

Yep, May 20th. Next Monday, according to Jolla, “all will be revealed“. I like it when I see things like that (even when the teaser trailer surrounding that message makes no sense), ‘cos it implies we’ve only seen a fraction of what Sailfish is capable of so far, and since what we’ve seen so far has been made of win, what on Earth might they be waiting to unveil next? (more…)

One of the big draws about Blackberry phones (or so I’m led to believe, anyway, I’ve never actually used one as my own phone) is the Blackberry Messenger service. As the name suggests, it’s a messenger service (yeah, you go for it, state the bleedin’ obvious, Markus) exclusive to Blackberry phones (and again), and according to people who’ve used it extensively, it’s rather brilliant.

That second bit of my incredibly obvious description is soon to change, though, ‘cos according to Blackberry’s own blog, the Blackberry Messenger service (henceforth shortened to its official acronym, BBM, ‘cos I’m fundamentally lazy) is coming to iOS and Android! So, what can we expect, and why should you be excited? (more…)

I’ve been something of a scathing critic of Blackberry phones of olde (mainly because they were usually duffers), but I have to admit that with the launch of Blackberry 10, the company’s really upped its game; while I’m still not entirely sure that it’ll singlehandedly manage to turn round the manufacturer’s somewhat ailing fortunes, I have to admit that the Blackberry Z10 is a really rather nice phone.

When that phone was announced, they also unveiled the Blackberry Q10, a QWERTY’d-up equivalent to their flagship, and now, they’ve unveiled a new mid-range version of that phone. It’s called the Blackberry Q5, and as you can see, it looks rather sweet… (more…)

Y’know, a lot of people out there (and yes, I’m one of them) have said that the HTC HD2 is the phone that will never die. Seriously, far from becoming obsolete when Microsoft unceremoniously binned old school Windows Mobile, the HTC HD2 has gone to be the phone that pretty much every smartphone OS is being ported to. Android’s been ported onto there. Windows Phone’s been ported onto there. Granted, iOS hasn’t, for obvious reasons, but hell, people’ve even managed to port Windows XP onto the chuffing thing.

Basically, HTC made the most versatile phone ever, and now, one of the clever forum users at xdadevelopers has ported Firefox OS to it. So, what’s the crack? (more…)

Well here we go, folks, another day, another rumour about the unicorn-like Amazon smartphone. Ever since Amazon launched the Kindle Fire, there’s been consistent rumours that the next device they made would be a smartphone, honest guvnor, this time it really is happening, promise, you’ll see.

It never does, though…

Today’s rumour is a bit different, ‘cos it doesn’t say there’ll be an Amazon smartphone. No, according to the Wall Street Journal, there’ll be two Amazon smartphones, at least one of which will resurrect a gimmick that mobile phones tried not to long ago, before dumping said gimmick, because no-one cared. So, what’s the crack? (more…)

Right then, you may well remember that I’ve been a very vocal supporter of the Asha range of phones made by Nokia. I’ve questioned, before, just how these things can possibly not be classed as smartphones, and now that the Nokia Asha 501 has been announced, I’m asking it again…

Seriously, look at it. How in the name of everything sane is that phone not classed as an entry-level smartphone? Well, actually, as it happens, I think I might have a theory about that… (more…)

Well, that’s the bank holiday over with, so it’s time to get back into the action! Let’s start with an Engadget video I watched earlier (of a new phone you’ve never heard of, and neither have I, called the Vivo Xplay), with a particularly nifty new feature called Free Touch…

Yes, it’s a one-handed mode, and that’s rather cool, that is. As the blokie in the video said, Samsung has made it socially acceptable for people to have massive phones (consider the gargantuan Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3, a phone that truly lives up to its name), so this one-handed feature could well be rather useful indeed. But how does it work? (more…)

A few days ago, I did a post about Pelican Imaging and in it, I talked about two things: 1/ how they’ve been working on light-field (or plenoptic, if ye want to get all fancy) camera tech; and 2/ how Nokia recently invested a load of cash in the company. Remember? I got ever so slightly excited about it all (as per usual).

Well today, there’s more news, ‘cos according to Engadget, Pelican Imaging’s super-scifi light-field camera array will be appearing on a smartphone next year. Yes, in 2014, if everything pans out as they promise, we’re going to see this awesome new tech appearing on an actual phone in the actual wild.

And yes, I’m still excited… (more…)

My feelings on the Sony Xperia Z are well documented, but since I’ve never been known to avoid repeating myself, I’ll tell you them again: the Sony Xperia Z is possibly the greatest phone that’s ever been unveiled, and it’s a strong contender for my phone of the year, even though there’s still another seven months to go before we hit 2014.

However, it seems that Sony aren’t resting on their laurels, if the latest rumour about the Japanese manufacturer is to be believed. Y’see, according to VR-Zone, they’re working on a new phone codenamed the Sony Honami, and it’s not just going to be powerful; if the rumour’s true, it’s also going to have an absolute monster of a camera. So, what’s the crack? (more…)