Mobile Phone Blog:

Well blimey o’riley, I cannot believe I forgot what today is. Mind you, it’s hardly surprising. Just ask any of my friends how good I am at remembering birthdays. Honestly, I’m useless at it; I swear, on my life, I even had my mum’s birthday wrong in my phone until I lent her it for something and she spotted it.

It was a tad awkward, yes.

Anyway, the point is that I was poking about online a few minutes ago, and suddenly saw maaaaaaaaany posts reminding me that today, right, today is the 40th anniversary of the very first ever mobile phone call! So, I reckon it’s time to get all contemplative and retrospective, and all that… (more…)

Hmm, I reckon I’m going to have to categorise this story as ‘really very intriguing if true, but take it with a pinch, nae, an entire EU mountain of salt’. In fact that might not be enough salt; we’d best start strip-mining the Bonneville Salt Flats so we’ve got enough. Of course, there’s always that slim possibility that it’s true, and if it is, well, it could well end up being really cool.

Y’see, there’s a rumour going about that the upcoming X Phone, by Motorola, is in fact not going to be one phone. No, the rumour is that it’ll be a customisable package, where you pick the hardware spec for your phone, and according to DroidLife, that possibility’s now been hinted at by someone within Motorola… (more…)

Now then, here’s a thing; a rumour about an upcoming phone, and it’s not one of the usual suspects (as in it’s not an HTC or a Samsung). No sirree, today’s rumour is about Motorola, and it concerns a new phone that they might be working on, and that might be announced at the Google I/O conference in May.

According to UnwiredView, it’s called the Motorola X. Well, alright, it’s rumoured to be called the Motorola X, although that may not be its name when it goes on sale, if it’s even its name at all.

So, it’s time for the two big questions, once more: 1/ will it be any good, if it exists; and 2/ does it exist, or is the rumour a load of cobblers? (more…)

Blimey, 2013 really is turning into the new of the new smartphone platform, innit? There’s Firefox OS, that looks interesting. There’s also Ubuntu, which I didn’t know about until today, but which looks kinda cool. There’s that phoenix that rose from the ashes of MeeGo, namely Sailfish OS…

Oh, and there’s the other phoenix that rose from the ashes of MeeGo, and that OS is called Tizen. I’ve blogged about it a few times in the past, and mentioned how, since it was being backed by Samsung, I could easily imagine the Korean manufacturer punting out some phones using it as their OS. According to Bloomberg, Samsung’s now confirmed that in 2013, they’ll be doing just that. So, what can we expect to see? (more…)

Now then, here’s a topic I’ve not talked about for a while, with the last time I mentioned it in any kid of depth was last year: the Amazon Appstore. There’s a very good reason why I’ve not mentioned it in ages, and it’s quite simply because you can only actually use the Amazon Appstore if you’re in the colonies. Well, alright, the USA, ‘cos Aussies are out of luck, too.

However, that’s rumoured to not be the case much longer, because according to AllThingsD, the Amazon Appstore is allegedly coming to selected European countries this summer, and we’re one of ‘em (along with Germany, France, Austria, Italy and Spain). Naturally, I have some thoughts on this, so strap yourselves in… (more…)

A while back, I did a blog post about a rumoured Nexus tablet, that was set to expand the Nexus range out of the world of smartphones, and into the realm of tablets. My conclusion in that post was that a Nexus tablet would most likely happen, but that I wasn’t sure whether that particular tablet was the actual real deal.

Well, today, there’s another rumour, which I read about on the pages of IntoMobile (I’d love to link to the original story on PhoneArena, but for some reason, my firewall seems to think their site should be blocked). Yup, we have another purported pic of the Nexus tablet, and there’s a couple of unexpected bits of information in there, if it’s genuine. Is it genuine, though? (more…)

Ever since Motorola released the Milestone, a phone that seriously impressed me, I’ve had a bit of a soft spot for them. There was a time, so many years ago, when I viewed them as being rubbish, but then the Milestone came out, and it was a brilliant phone (hell, it was my phone of the year, that year). So, what I’m saying is that I like Motorola (even if I’ll never love them as much as HTC, but that’s a given, ‘cos I’m an HTC fanboy).

So, when I see a story about them bringing out new phones, I get interested. That’s exactly what’s happened today, ‘cos according to Mobile.163 (Google-translated link, enjoy the grammatical lulz), they’ve shown of three new Android phones in China, and they’re all button-less… (more…)

Awwwwwwwwwwww yeah, I’ve been wanting to see this film for ages, so you can imagine my glee when I saw it had mobile phones in it (well, a mobile phone, which faced a grisly fate, which seems kinda fitting). I’m talking, of course, about Tucker And Dale Vs Evil, a film that I’d been dying to see, because: 1/ it looked unbelievably funny; and 2/ Alan Tudyk from Firefly is in it, and he is awesome.

And yes, because it had a mobile phone in it, I can legitimately blog about it. The downside? I have precisely no idea what the phone was. Y’see, it was one of those ghastly American cheapo flip phones, so I couldn’t properly identify it, although my best guess’d be that was either a Motorola or a Samsung… (more…)

Now then, here’s an interesting thing. It’s well known that the Nexus range is made entirely of Google’s own, untarnished view of what Android phones should be like, without any additional interface on top. The last phone to be released in the range was the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and everyone seemed to love it, which is fair enough, really, ‘cos it was brilliant.

According to CNet, though, Google might be planning on expanding the Nexus range, ‘cos they apparently filed a patent back in January for a new sliding phone. And the thing is… it turns out that there’s a couple of rather compelling reasons to suspect this will indeed lead to a Nexus slidephone going on sale… (more…)

Right then, I’ve done loads and loads of posts about how my usual reaction to seeing a ‘luxury phone’ is one of complete and utter disdain. It’s fair to say that I’ve never been a fan, but I still like to keep my eye on them, to see what overpriced, ostentatious hideousness will appear next. When ye’re talking luxury phones, though, one brand name stands for that concept more than any other, and that brand is one owned by Nokia.

Yup, I’m talking about Vertu, although according to Reuters, the brand possibly won’t be owned by Nokia for too much longer. Apparently, they’re in talks to sell off the brand, to private equity group Permira. And how much are they planning on flogging it for? (more…)