NFC-enabled handset

Today Nokia announced their latest NFC-enabled handset - the classic-shaped Nokia 6212 classic. Near field communication or NFC is the next generation of mobile connectivity (based on Bluetooth though) and it allows user to seamlessly share content, pay bills or use their cellphone as an electronic traveling ticket.
While NFC may sound exciting, it will take long before the technology gets wide support. The Nokia 6212 classic is not the first Nokia handset to feature NFC though - last year saw the announcement of the NFC version of Nokia 6131 for example.

Beside NFC, the Nokia 6212 classic features dual-band UMTS support and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity. It has a 2-inch 16M color TFT display with QVGA resolution, much like the Nokia 6500 classic. The 6212 classic is nowhere near the minimalist dimensions of the 6500 but it's compact nonetheless and weighs only 88 g.
Onboard the Nokia 6212 classic you will find a 2 megapixel snapper, miniUSB port, microSD memory card slot (up to 4GB), FM radio, and stereo Bluetooth. All this runs on the popular non-smartphone Nokia S40 software platform.
The Nokia 6212 classic will be available in Q3 2008 for around 200 euro before subsidies and taxes.

Ericsson Z770

Another Sony Ericsson handset is in the works it seems, as some small photos and scarce information leaked online. The soon-to-be mid-range Sony Ericsson Z780 will be a close relative to the already announced Sony Ericsson Z770 both in features and design.
As the Sony Ericsson blog reports, the new Sony Ericsson Z780 will be a tri-band phone in two versions - Z780i for Europe and Z780a for North America. The phone will sport a main 256K TFT QVGA display and a secondary external one with unknown parameters.

Being an upgrade of Z770 it is almost certain that Z780 will sport the important goodies of its forerunner as EDGE and HSDPA support, Bluetooth, FM radio with RDS, M2 memory card slot, etc.
Unfortunately, the Z780 will again feature a 2 megapixel snapper, yet we still don't know whether it will have autofocus. The latest web browser NetFront 3.4 will also come with the clamshell.
Sony Ericsson Z780 will be available in two colors: Amethyst Silver and Grand Onyx. Bear in mind that so far this is only leaked information. We'll just have to wait for the official announcement to hear more about the specs and availability.

Fascinating as they are, ultra high-end handsets are not everybody's cup of tea. In fact, the good old mid-range is the bread and butter for every successful mobile phone company, for that's what gets those sales numbers right. As we see it, Samsung i550 might just be the phone to perfectly fit this description. It doesn't yell expensive out loud, but has great all-round functionality and might just become tomorrow's classic.

Key features:
2.6" 262K-color TFT display of QVGA resolution
3G with HSDPA
Trackball navigation
Built-in GPS receiver
Symbian OS with S60 user interface
Wi-Fi (Samsung i550w only)
3 megapixel camera with auto focus
MicroSD card slot
3.5mm stereo audio jack
FM radio
Decent battery life
Bluetooth with A2DP support

Main disadvantages:
Tri-band GSM support only
Trackball is somewhat slow
No two-step shutter key
No Wi-Fi (Samsung i550)
A bit too conservative looks
Video recoding limited to QVGA resolution
Awkward soft key layout
No RDS

When first announced, the Samsung i550 had only one version and it crucially lacked Wi-Fi. However, just as it started hitting the shelves, a second WLAN enabled version named Samsung i550w popped up. The two versions have no other differences in terms of hardware or software. Anyway, the second version places Samsung i550 in a somewhat different league - handsets that have it (almost) all. It may not have the best camera or GPS receiver around but performs adequately in both departments and that is what really matters most of the time.
Right now the Samsung i550 seems to have no direct market rivals. It's considerably cheaper than Nokia N82 and N95, or Samsung G810, which makes any comparison unfair. Even the N95 classic costs more than what you would pay for a Samsung i550. All of these handsets have a number of extra features on top of what the i550 has to offer but, as we found out, they're all on par in terms of usability and user friendliness.

K850i vs N95

Introduce the 5 megapixel series in phone arena. This year several GSM cameraphones have already reached the 5 megapixel barrier. The Nokia N95 has been out long enough now that it's even got an update - an 8GB version with a larger screen and a larger battery so obviously it will stick around as a Nokia flagship for quite some time. The Sony Ericsson K850 will be out selling really soon and it's surely going to be the Sony Ericsson cameraphone of cameraphones. And since we were curious probably as much as everybody else out there, we didn't lose any more time and we set off our GSMArena heads-on 5 megapixel cameraphone shootout - we thought that it would be fun and we really like to… well, shoot things. And it really turned out to be fun.

Before we start though, we should point out that it's really hard to tell which of the 5 megapixel shooters is the best. First off, our Sony Ericsson K850 test unit is actually a pre-release version (expect our detailed review really soon), so changes in the camera algorithm are likely to be made. They all pack top-notch camera performance and there's not an easy way to announce a clear winner. As each of them has its own quirks we've tried to apply a scoring system that would evaluate their overall performance based on their particular performance in different shooting scenes. Each handset can get a maximum of 5 points for its performance in the individual tests. But bear in mind that we haven't applied any weight factor to these tests which simply means that shooting in the dark is equally important as shooting under bright sun. In real life however this is not always the case - many of you shoot only during the day, while others will find themselves with the lens cover open only at night-time parties. So in the end, it's up to you to decide which cameraphone will suit your shooting preferences the best. Enough small talk, let's get to work.

Nokia N95 kept the ISO 200, just slowing the shutter to 1/17 sec. K850 used even slower shutter - 1/10 sec and increasing the ISO to 125. Note, that with shutter speeds like this you will usually end with unusable photos, because of the motion blur. Anyway, here Nokia is a clear winner, not much to explain. K850 vs N95 - 2:4

N95 shoot

K850i shoot

Even from the thumbnails you can see the different color reproduction from the two photo mobiles. Neither of the phones is spot-on, but the real poster looks closer to what Nokia N95 shows. Sony Ericsson auto mode chooses 1/30 sec and ISO 64, which is a good choice, while the Nokia strangely prefers to shoot at 1/111 sec and ISO 200. No idea why N95 needed the ISO boost.

At first look N95 surprises us with a cleaner looking image (look at the first crop or at the sky). Very good ISO 200 performance indeed. However, looking a little bit deeper we've noticed the price paid. Nokia has implemented some clever noise suppressing technique, which delivers smooth image. In some cases however, it also results in a loss of detail, look at the second crop - the fine texture of the chair is missing and the sand looks very strange. The noisier image of K850 presents the sand a lot better. The file size of the K850 is twice as big, which is not a surprise, the noise reduction in Nokia N95 loses a lot of fine detail. You can see the same effect in some outdoor photos if you look carefully at the foliage. Overall, we've decided that the Sony Ericsson approach is slightly better, as image noise can be fixed with specialized software, while the lost detail in the N95 photo cannot be recovered.

Nokia Tube

Introduce the latest new about Nokia phone. Nokia Tube, the latest and highly rumored exceptional Touch phone, is no longer a rumor as live images of the device leaked today plus some details about the device feature pack. Nokia Tube runs on the latest Nokia 5th generation S60 full Touch UI and will be the first phone of a brand new handset lineup (no N-series here). Actually, Nokia Tube will not be even the flagship of that lineup – the actual flagship handset will be released shortly after the Tube.

Yet, the Nokia Tube already seems like a high-roller device that will have its say on the full touch market. The Tube is expected to have a 16M TFT display with 360 x 640 pixels resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. The size of the display will be somewhere between 3 and 3.5-inches. The display will offer a tactile feedback but sadly, won’t have multi touch function like the iPhone.

A stylus input will also be provided as an option and using it would hand-writing recognition.
The communication department of Nokia Tube is at its peak, sporting quad-band GPRS/ EDGE/UMTS and HSDPA with uPnP support, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and AVRCP support. The built-in GPS with A-GPS and geotagging support completes the wireless communication set of the hi-end Nokia Tube device.