Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

While we’re still waiting to see the first Windows Mobile 7 phones on the market but no doubt with the release of them not far off it’s time to see Samsung’s offering, well read a few tit-bits of what has been leaked so far.

Called the Cetus, we know that it will have to meet Microsoft’s strict minimum requirements for to run the OS which we’ll run through

• High end processor : Armv7 Cortex/Scorpion or better
• 256MB RAM
• Capacitive touchscreen
• FM Radio
• accelerometer
• at least a 5MP camera
• at least 8GB of internal storage

Whether the Samsung Cetus will better these we’re unsure as the full specifications of the phone aren’t available yet. What we do know is that it will have a 4” 800x480 AMOLED screen. On top of that it will have a front facing camera aswell as a 5MP camera on the reverse. It will also have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity with built in GPS and a Micro USB slot.

Sadly that’s all we can offer for now as there’s no images or hardware specs. If any new information comes about we’ll update.

We’ve already seen a couple of Windows Mobile 7 phones on the horizon such as the Dell Lightning and the LG protoype and with all eyes on what Android and Apple are doing it seems nobody knows when Windows Mobile 7 will be seen first and on which handset. Now I’m keeping an eye on HTC as they’re growing bigger as a company everyday due to the fact they’re knocking out some pretty decent phones. Well now it’s time for their first Windows Mobile 7 phone, which coincidently could be the first Windows Mobile 7 handset on sale, delivering what Microsoft set out to achieve with both the software and it’s required hardware specs.

Packing a 4.3” WVGA screen it wil be powered by the speedy 1.3GHz Snapdragon so already it’s going to be up their in the speed department , allowing Windows Mobile to do it’s thing. As Microsoft have set out guidelines as to what Windows Mobile phones require, expect a 5 megapixel camera, GPS and the other usual stuff.

At the moment it’s all rumours and HTC haven’t confirmed much in terms of future release date or price or whether they have other plans for the Windows market.

Despite Windows Mobile 7 being in our knowledge banks for quite a while nothing has really surfaced in regards to new phones using it only some dodgy leaked photos of a prototype LG that surfaced. Well now a new leak suggests that Dell are looking at releasing the “Lightning” a vertical slider like the N95 or Palm Pre and the images look quite nifty.

The suggested specs are also pretty good too, 3G connectivity with an upgrade to 4G when the network comes in 2011. Snapdragon power at 1GHz, 1GB of Flash memory, 512MB of RAM and all shown on a super 4.1” OLED screen. So the brains look good what else? Well a 5MP camera, GPS, FM Radio plus the usual accelerometer and compass too will put it on par with the current crop of top end smarties. What makes this one stand out though is a supposed “FULL FLASH SUPPORT”. Microsoft had said that on launch Windows Mobile 7 wouldn’t have full flash support yet the Lightning should be due out not long into the first wave of WM7 phones……. confusing

No price or exact release details just expect it in the latter part of this year.

We spoke a month or so ago and got a little bit excited about the prospect of a Microsoft Zune phone which I was hoping was going to be a true iPhone beater sporting the new Windows Mobile 7. Originally the rumours were flying about that the phone development was called project “Pink”. Well Microsoft has now announced that Project “Pink” will now be coming this Autumn to Vodafone but has been renamed as Kin but it doesn’t appear that the all singing all dancing Windows 7 Zune Phone is the Kin. Maybe it’s the start of things to come.

Both the Kin 1 and Kin 2 are touchscreen phones with slide out QWERTY keyboards. The main emphasis on these phones is social networking and although the phones aren’t sporting Microsoft’s new Windows Mobile 7 or even 6.5 Microsoft has developed another OS that the KIN can call its own, designed to complement it's social networking abilities.

Full specs are a little thin but what we do know is the Kin 1 is the smaller of the two and has a 5MP camera whilst the Kin 2 is slightly bigger but has a better 8MP camera, larger storage capacity and the ability to take videos at HD quality. Both will also pack the Zune HD software, which is great and certainly more than capable of challenging the iPhone’s music abilities.

The software features of both phones sound clever to it can collate all your favourite people’s statuses, messages and pictures all into one place called the Kin Loop. Also if you want to share yours, there’s the Kin Spot. Drag photos, messages and your status updates into it and then choose who you want to distribute them to. Then there’s the Kin Studio. Anything and everything you create on the phone can be sent to the cloud. This can then be accessed in any web browser and shared again to whoever you like.

Quite possibly the best thing i’ve heard this year and if it’s true i may actually wet myself. The Zune is Microsoft’s answer to the iPod. Despite the Americans getting every version we here in the UK seem to keep missing out on the PMP. Now it’s rumoured(quite strongly) that Microsoft will be bringing out a phone equivalent and hopefully this will be revealed at Mobile World Congress in a fortnight.

NVIDIA have supposedly confirmed that they will be attending the the Congress with Microsoft (reports come from MuyComputer). Now NVIDIA make the TEGRA chip which powers the latest Zune HD. Also it is believed that Windows Mobile 7 will be launched at the congress too so it certainly looks promising.

Taking into account what the Zune HD does you’ll be looking at a very good phone, depending on Windows Mobile 7 software being good, but should pack a lot of features better than what any current iPhone could achieve. The UI of the Zune HD is easy to use and will look great on the low power, sharp OLED capacitive touchscreen (Multitouch oooo yeah!). Powered by the TEGRA chip HD content and multitasking will be done effortlessly and can be shipped to your TV via its HDMI out. If it’s planning on going into the gaming world like the iPhone, Zune is already a part of Xbox Live and that would mean a very large market of gaming enthusiasts with access to content and massive multiplayer functions.

Will keep you all updated if and when i learn more.

Toshiba’s TG01 phone, the first one to house the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor was launched today on Orange a week after it was accidently announced on its website last week and then withdrawn. It will be exclusive to Orange for the first 3 months and then be available on other networks.

You can pick the phone up for free on a 24 month contract at £39.15 a month. For this you’ll get 1200 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited internet and Orange Maps. It might seem a bit pricey but you’re probably looking at a similar contract for an N97.

After announcing the watch phone earlier this week Orange CEO Tom Alexander said "at least three new market-leading devices will be unveiled by the end of the year" Could this be the first of those three.

TG01 Specs :

• 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
• 4.1-inch WVGA screen
• HSDPA internet
• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• DivX support
• Windows Mobile 6.1

Zdnet are reporting some very interesting information about the rumoured Microsoft Pink Phone.

While the Pink Phone has not been confirmed the rumours are largely fuelled by the specification for the Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1.

According to Znet they received the following specification from a “trustworthy source”

WM7 Chassis 1 Specification

Core requirements:
Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia AP15/16(AKA Tagra) and TI 3430 all meet spec)
Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash – 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size)
Display:  WVGA (800×480) or FWVGA (854×480) 3.5” or greater diagonal
Touch: Multi-touch required
Battery: Sufficient to meet Days of Use LTK requirements.
Controls: Start, Back, Send and End are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present).

Peripherals:
Camera: 3MP+, flash optional, 2nd camera optional (VGA resolution sufficient)
GPS: aGPS required
Sensors required: Light Sensor, Compass (3 axis, 5 degrees, 100 Hz sample rate), Accelerometer (3 axis, 2mg resolution, 100 Hz sample rate)
USB: High speed required, 20 MB/s transfer rate.
BlueTooth: BT2.1 required, must run MSFT BT stack, CSR BlueCore6 or later recommended.
Wi-Fi: 802.11B/G required, must run MSFT Native Wi-Fi stack, Atheros 6002 or Broadcomm 4325 recommended.
Connectors: Micro USB and 3.5mm Audio required.

Options:
FM tuner:  If tuner HW is present it will be detected and supported by the Media application.
Haptics
SD Card (Micro SD recommended)
DPAD, qwerty or 12/20 key keyboards all optional

It is strongly suspected that the reference to the QCOM 8k will be the immense Snapdragon's QSD8xxx-series chips

It is also worth noting that the NVIDIA Tegra platform is specifically listed as meeting the core CPU requirements, as well as TI's OMAP 3 platform and the Snapdragon. So in theory the hardware specification all add up, and more importantly they all add up to be a potentially awesome phone.

There has been quite a few rumours flying around about the Zune recently, including a new HD Zune. This time it is believed that MS maybe released Zune software on mobile phones. According to Adweek Microsoft is auditioning three major ad agencies for the launch of a new mobile service called "Pink".

It is believed that the Zune software will like be the media and software service used on Windows Mobile Devices.