The nerds over at Mobile Geek Inc did a nifty investigative piece revealing more details about Nokia’s mid-level C6-01 candybar. After making an awkward early appearance on Nokia’s Dutch online storefront, more pics along with the user agent profile have been located thus confirming its lack of QWERTY, 8 megapixel camera, and Symbian^3 OS. A nice alternative to the 5 megapixel C6-00 slider shackled to S60 5th. Look for the new C6 to get official with a very nice price either at, or around, Nokia World 2010 which kicks off September 14th in London. One more front-side pic after the break.
For all its luxurious sapphire crystal glass and genuine alligator skin, the TAG Heuer Meridiist has always struggled to keep up with the times — but don’t expect that two megapixel camera or 1.9-inch QVGA screen to change in the handset’s latest iteration. No, the Merediist GMT’s only new feature is — you guessed it — to literally keep track of Greenwich Mean Time. “Switch between home time and destination time,” a flashy new ad teases, as a pair of (presumably) filthy rich individuals take the TAG Heuer Tesla for a cross-country drive. We’re not quite sure how one originally forgets about world time with 150 years of watchmaking experience under one’s belt, but at least the company has pledged to include the function in all future $4000+ models.
Usual rules apply — we can’t independently confirm this at the moment — but a tipster has sent us what appears to be T-Mobile training materials for an upcoming Motoblur-infused candybar smartphone, the Motorola Charm. Only this Motoblur is allegedly powered by Android 2.1 and boasts the same scalable widgets as we saw on Droid X, in addition to improved Facebook / Twitter integration (hello, Like and Retweet) and the usual Eclair refinements.As far as the hardware is concerned, there isn’t much to glean from it at this point, aside from a textured QWERTY keyboard reminiscent of the CLIQ and a “camera” button denoting some form of memory-capturing capabilities. Speaking of which, the materials mention that the enhanced Motoblur is heading to CLIQ and CLIQ XT. Let us bookend this entire post with another reminder that none of this is confirmed, but we do know more than a few T-Mobile users who would love to get their mitts on a candybar Android.
If the phone on the left looks familiar, it should — it looks a heck of a lot like the Android-powered X10 mini, sharing the 2.6-inch touchscreen and some of its UI cues — but alas, this bad boy isn’t running Android. Instead, Sony Ericsson is branding this fairly low-end dumbphone as the rumored Yendo with Walkman branding, a 2 megapixel cam, and FM radio; interestingly, it lacks 3G, instead offering one of two dual-band GSM / EDGE choices in ten colors. On the right, you’ve got the Cedar, bringing back what’s quickly become a dying form factor as of late — the simple candybar — with a 2 megapixel cam and VGA video capture at 30fps, 3G, a 2.2-inch display, and 3.5mm headphone jack available either in black with silver accents or red accents. Both will be available in the third quarter, though the Yendo has been slapped with the “selected markets” label, so we suspect it’ll be the harder to find of the two.
If you thought the aging i290 was about ready for replacement, we’ve got some great news for you — the updated i296 is upon us. It’s an ultra-basic device by any measure, seeing how it lacks a camera, music player, and web access, but if you’re just looking for a marginally stylish way to get your chirp-chirp on, this might be a decent way to do it. As with many (if not most) iDEN devices in recent memory, the candybar is mil-spec 810F compliant for dust, shock, and vibration resistance, and it runs just $59.95 contract free — let’s see you try to get that kind of a deal on a smartphone, eh? Follow the break for Boost’s press release.
It looks like Nokia’s conversion from the time-tested four-digit naming scheme to the one-letter, one-number strategy may be nearing completion now that the company has announced a new series of ultra-low end candybars that all have homes within the Cseries. The C1 is actually a three-pack of phones — the C1-00, C1-01, and C1-02 — all of which feature Nokia’s longest standby time ever (quoted at six weeks) along with a color display, integrated flashlight, 3.5mm headphone jack, and FM radio; the 01 and 02 variants add microSD slots, while the 01 also features a VGA camera and the 00 becomes Nokia’s very first dual-SIM device to hit the market. The C2 is also a dual-SIM device, but unlike the C1-00, the C2 can keep both SIMs active simultaneously, meaning you’ll be able to get calls and messages to either SIM without manually switching. It’s got a microSD slot and a SIM slot, meaning that one of the two SIMs is hot-swappable — a pretty unique feature if you’ve got an endless supply of lines that you want to be able to use without hassle. Look for the C1-00 to hit in the third quarter for €30 ($37) subsidy-free, the C1-01 early in the fourth quarter for €39 ($47), and the C1-02 and C2 both to come late in the fourth quarter of the year for 35 and 45 ($43 and $55), respectively. Follow the break for Nokia’s press release.
Say what you will about Nokia’s software, there’s no faulting the E70-series of QWERTY candybars, which marry delectable keyboards with thin, classy, and surprisingly rugged design — and of course top it off with an almost-just-too-small screen. The latest of these is the new Nokia E73 Mode for T-Mobile US (that’s right, a Nokia phone on a US carrier!), which will start shipping on June 16th. The S60 handset has a 5 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, WiFi, free turn by turn Ovi Maps, and not much more to speak of to set it apart from its predecessors, which is a good or bad thing depending upon what you want out of a phone. The best news, however, is that it’s retailing for $69.99 on a two year contract. PR is after the break.
Vertu’s not big on press releases, so you’ll have to forgive us for missing this a few weeks back — but it seems that Nokia’s little outpost of opulent, over-the-top luxury has just released an updated version of its time-tested Ascent range. The so-called Ascent 2010 features a 5 megapixel camera (up from the Ascent Ti’s 3), 8GB or 32GB of on-board storage depending on the version (up from 4GB), and quadband 3G. It also has AGPS with preloaded maps (Vertu’s carefully avoiding the plebeian Ovi Maps branding here, but we’d imagine it’s more or less the same thing), a 2-inch QVGA sapphire crystal display, and a sweet chronograph display (pictured) that undoubtedly makes the phone worth every one of the thousands of dollars you shell out for it. You can pick it up now in your choice of aluminum or titanium bodies with a variety of colored leather accents from luxury retailers around the globe — and don’t forget to pack your checkbook before you hop in the Roller and head down there, obviously.
A number of Series 40 devices were branded with Nokia’s “XpressMusic” label back in the day, so why not Xseries, too? Well, Nokia must be on the same page, because it has just announced the X2 candybar without a trace of smartphone DNA to its name after the X3 kicked things off a few months ago. The relatively low-end phone clocks in with a 5 megapixel cam with flash, 2.2-inch QVGA display, Ovi Store and Facebook support, dual loudspeakers, integrated FM radio, dedicated music keys, and microSD expansion up to 16GB (32GB would’ve been nice, but considering the scarcity and overwhelming price of said cards, it really doesn’t matter too much in practice). The 13mm-thick piece is due before the end of June for €85 ($113), which is a heck of a value by our rough math.
Remember Samsung’s impressive 3.7-inch Super AMOLED Beam projector phone running Andriod? This isn’t it. Instead, Samsung is launching its far less impressive 3.3-inch AMOLED (what, no Super?) Beam SPH-W9600 we previewed back in January into its South Korean home. So yeah, it’s the same 5 megapixeler with T-DMB TV, Microsoft Office and DivX codec support, and improved DLP pico projector that replaces last year’s W7900. But if it’s all the same to you Sammy, we’ll be waiting for the true projector phone successor — your Beam i8520, codenamed Halo — said to be launching this summer.
