Samsung announce 32GB microSD cards, 64GB moviNAND

Samsung have stuffed more memory in a tiny package than seemed possible a few years ago and announced their 32GB microSD cards. For integrated memory, they are readying chips with double that capacity - 64GB.

The previous best achievement in microSD cards capacity was 16GB but now that has been doubled. This feat of doubling the capacity of the previous generation seems to be the norm for flash memory.

These 32GB microSD from Samsung hits the 32GB limit of the microSDHC standard. The replacement standard is already in the works – the microSDXC standard. The microSDXC standard should allow microSD cards with a capacity of up to 2 TB to be released.

As for the chips meant for integrated memory, they’ll come in 64GB and will likely make their way to MP3 players and the new generation iPhone (3GS doubled the capacity of the 3G).

Mass production is expected to start next month and it won't be long until the cards reach the market. Compatibility of current devices with 32GB microSDHC cards and the future microSDXC cards is a completely different matter, of course.

ITG xpPhone gets priced, not more expensive than a netbook

The ITG xpPhone saga continues. I've covered the news extensively, with two major bits of information missing - pricing and release date. Well, now the pricing is known and it's just the release date that's left to be announced.

The ITG xpPhone is one of those emerging MID-slash-phone devices - an AMD CPU on the inside, running Windows XP or Windows 7 and all the wireless connectivity options you can think of.

The specs read more like a netbook - 512M/1/2GB RAM, 8-64GB SSD, 30-120GB HDD. The AMD CPU is clocked at either above or bellow 1GHz, though there are no exact numbers quoted. The screen of the ITG xpPhone is 4.3/4.8/7-inch touchscreen with 800x480/1024x600 resolution. For over-the-air connectivity, you get GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G/CDMA/EVDO with optional upgrades for WiMAX and LTE. There's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS of course.

And of course you get the flexibility and familiar environment of Windows XP (or Windows 7). There are dedicated dialer, contact and other apps you'd expect from a phone. The custom UI looks quite polished actually.

So, with netbook specs, you'd expect a netbook price and you would be right - depending on configuration, the ITG xpPhone costs between 400 and 650 US dollars (280-450 euro). Sure, there are cheaper netbooks out there, but none of them are this small - 158 x 75 x 16 mm, 400 grams.

Pressure-sensitive touchscreens are the next step

As the popularity of full-touch devices continues to grow rapidly, manufacturers are working as hard as they can on delivering better user experience. This latest innovation in the area concerns the screen itself and the way its reacts to out touches.

Resistive and capacitive touchscreens - we all know the difference. The resistive screens are way more accurate, but needs pressure to be applied and are generally less responsive. On the other side the capacitive screens require only slight touch to register a click, allow multi-touch gestures by default, but lack accuracy and cannot be used with gloves, styluses or if you have long nails.

And now we have the next touchscreen technology that will have a go at conquering the mobile world. Pressure-sensitive touchscreens can tell the difference between a slight touch and a really hard poke. That would allow a whole new user experience, with gestures based on the amount of pressure applied, along with ones currently available..

The new technology is based on quantum tunneling and is developed by the Peratech researchers (stationed in UK). It uses an electrically conductive material named a quantum tunneling composite. But we won't go any deeper in the physics side of things.

The important thing to note is that Peratech make pressure sensors from this material, which are incredibly thin and can be slipped under any touchscreens. They don't draw any power when idle so you shouldn't worry about battery life either.



Some of the supposed new gestures will allow you to drag and zoom pictures simultaneously or determine the scroll speed based on your pressure force.

Peratech already signed a license contract with the Japanese display manufacturer Nissha, which makes screens for LG, Nintendo and more. The first tech gadgets to use the new pressure-enabled screens are expected to hit the shelves in April.

Another photo of HTC Bravo in the wild, this time from Poland

The Nexus One is already out in the open market, but its HTC cousin - the HTC Bravo - is still very much a rumor. Yet another photo popped up and this might be the best one yet - you can get another look at what has changed between the HTC Bravo and the Nexus One.

The HTC Bravo matches pretty much all of the specs of the Nexus One, but there are exceptions - the trackball has been replaced by an optical trackpad and the phone's Android OS 2.0 (or possibly 2.1) is dressed in the pretty, multi-touch enabled Sense UI clothes.

The HTC Bravo also sports a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 3.7" AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution (480 x 800), a 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA and HSUPA all crammed into a shell only 11.7mm thick. The RAM was originally listed as 256MB, then we heard 320MB, but in the end it might turn up to be even more - the Nexus One has 512MB RAM.

A week ago there was a rumor that the HTC Bravo will be available at T-Mobile UK by the end of January, free on a 35 pounds a month contract. But the end of January is approaching fast and there's still no official word from T-Mobile. A different rumor says that the HTC Bravo will be in Europe in March, but again there's no confirmation.

Nokia X6 and LG GD510 Pop go pink for Valentine's Day

Okay class, pick up your painting palettes and your coloring books - we're going to paint your favorite mobile phone in a new color. Let's start with the Nokia X6, then the LG GD510 Pop. Since Valentine’s Day is coming, let’s make both phones pink. Much better.

Ok, now serious. You might have heard rumors of a Nokia X6 without Comes With Music and that it will have 16GB internal storage instead of 32GB. More information has surfaced that supports that rumor and adds a few details.

It will be available in new colors - Pink on White as well as Black on Black - to go with the Red on Black and Blue on Black currently available for the 32GB version of the Nokia X6. According to Eldar Murtazin the 16GB version will be 100 euro cheaper than the 32GB version but you will be losing the WH-500 headphones in addition to the Comes With Music subscription.

The expected release date for the 16GB Nokia X6 is somewhere in the second half of February.

Update: The 16GB version of the Nokia X6 is official. It’s confirmed that it doesn’t have Comes With Music and it will be available in all black, all white, Pink on White and Yellow on White. The Nokia X6 16GB will come with the new Ovi Maps with free voice-guided drive and walk navigation and Michelin and Lonely Planet guides.




The Nokia X6 16GB will be available this quarter. Instead with the WH-500 headphones the X6 16GB will come with a pair of the much cheaper WH-701. There’s still no word on the price though.

The LG GD510 Pop is also going chameleon with a few new colors. Some of those colors we've seen before but there are a few new ones too. Here's the lineup of the five available color versions:



Yep, there's a pink LG GD510 Pop but LG didn't give a specific date for when the new colors will be available. There's still time to Valentine's Day but not much, allowing for delivery.

Apple Q4 financial report is out, all is rosy in Cupertino

Apple have just published their financial report for the last quarter of last year and it shows that their amazing streak continues. The company posted revenue of 15.68 billion US dollars and a net quarterly profit of 3.38 billion US dollars, which compare really favorably to the numbers from the last three months of 2008 (11.88 billion and 2.26 billion respectively).

One of the main reasons for Apple's astounding success is the 8.7 million iPhones that were sold in the quarter, which is exactly twice as much as in Q4 of 2008. The iPod sales fell 8 percent to 21 million but the 3.36 million Macintosh computers sold during the quarter (a 33 percent growth) more than made up for that.

Two things are worth pointing out in the Apple financial report. Their gross margin of 40.9 percent means that the company's profit per dollar spent in production is way higher than any other manufacturer could imagine. Also this is the first time that we could remember when the international sales of Apple devices account for more than half of their revenue.

The company expects its revenue for the first quarter of 2010 to be between 11.0 billion to 11.4 billion US dollars, which would make it the best non-holiday quarter in their history.

You can check out the full report by following the link.

Sony Ericsson loses another 167M euro, puts all hopes on X10

Sony Ericsson keep struggling with the challenging market conditions and recorded another losing quarter to end the 2009. Despite selling half a million handsets more than they did in the Q4 of last year they still scored a loss of 167 million euro.

As was to be expected, the holiday season increased the average selling price of the Sony Ericsson devices to 120 euro and the number of units sold to 14.6 million. Those numbers would have been even higher, had the XPERIA X2 and XPERIA X10 managed to reach the market in time but, alas, they didn't make it in time.

Meanwhile the company's painful restructuring continues and swallowed another 150 million euro. It should be able to save the company good 800 million euro a year in the end but we are already starting to doubt if they will survive long enough to enjoy the benefits.

The full 2009 financial report of Sony Ericsson shows that the company managed to ship 57.1 million handsets (41 decrease compared to 2008) for an average price of 119 euro (2.5% increase). The net loss for the period totals 836 million euro. Gulp!

Considering that the company has a net cash position of 620 million euro they have no chance of surviving yet another year like this so let's hope that, for the sake of competition, things start to improve.

With the forecasts being of a slight growth in units shipped in the global handset market in the upcoming year, it might just be good enough ground for the X10, X2 and the Vivaz to sell well enough to save the company. Perhaps we can even expect a major release next month at the MWC that should change the whole game.

For more numbers from the Sony Ericsson report follow the link.

Nokia blesses all its smartphones with free voice-guided navigation

Nope, there is no mistake in the title. Today, in a swift game-changing maneuvre, Nokia announced that all their smartphones will get lifetime voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation through Ovi Maps for free. All you need is download the free new 3.3 version of Ovi Maps and you are good to go.

According to the company this new version includes high-end walk and drive turn-by-turn voice navigation at no cost at all. Ovi Maps navigation is currently available in 74 countries and 46 languages, with even traffic information for more than 10 of those.



In any case this is a huge leap forward for Nokia and the value of their handsets. The Ovi Maps is even better than the Google's free Google Maps navigation as it doesn't necessarily need internet connection on-the-go to work - you can preload maps from a computer to escape data charges.

In addition Nokia have also substantially upgraded the Ovi Maps application itself, so it now packs a cooler looking interface, the Lonely planet city guide and Michelin restaurant guide with lots and lots of points of interest. There's also an events guide that lists all events happening within a 3km radius of your position and provides you with details on each one.

So what are you waiting for? Follow the link and get your free Ovi Maps update and you can use the voice guidance on your way back from work. You can also download it straight from your Nokia handset through the SW update utility.

Samsung CorbyPRO available on Vodafone UK as Genio Slide

Genio in the Queen's English means Corby - and now the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO or rather Samsung Genio Slide is up and selling on the Vodafone UK site. With slide-out QWERTY and Fashion Jackets, the Genio Slide is a trendy capable texter for people on a budget.

The Samsung Genio Slide or B5310 CorbyPRO, whatever you want to call it, is the best and brightest of the Corby and Genio groups. It's the dual-band 3G with 7.2Mbps, the Wi-Fi, GPS and DivX support that really set it apart from the rest of the Corby family.

Well those and its slide out QWERTY keyboard of course. The rest of the Samsung B5310 Genio Slide is nothing too surprising - 2.8" QVGA touchscreen (though it's a resistive touchscreen, instead of the usual for the family capacitive), 3MP fixed-focus camera, microSD slot for cards up to 16GB, document viewer, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, 3.5mm audio jack and a microUSB port.

The Samsung Genio Slide is not all work and no play - like the other Corby/Genio phones, the B5310 Genio Slide features Fashion Jackets - the changeable battery covers that allow you to quickly customize your phone.

Vodafone UK already have the phone up on their site. You can get the Samsung Genio Slide, without paying for the phone, on one of three 2-year plans, starting from 15 pounds a month. If 2 years seems like too long of a commitment for you, there are 18-month and 12-month contracts starting from 20 and 25 pounds respectively.