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

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processor was launched today on Orange a week after it was accidently announced on its website last week and then withdrawn.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.

We have already had a few details about the range of phones HTC will be releasing this year including the Diamond 2 and the Touch Pro 2.

Now we have a few more details about all the other phones they are planning to release:

Whitestone:

• 3.6″ WVGA display
• GSM and EVDO
• Qualcomm 7600 at 528MHz
• 256MB RAM / 512MB ROM
• 5 megapixel camera
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• ETA: September on Verizon

Firestone:

• 3.6″ WVGA display
• GSM/HSPA
• Qualcomm 8250 at 600MHz
• 256MB RAM / 512MB ROM
• 8 megapixel camera
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• ETA: September

Thor (aka Athena 2):

• 4.8″ WVGA display
• Qualcomm 8250 at 1GHz
• 256MB RAM/ 512MB ROM
• 5 megapixel camera
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• ETA: September

Twin:

• VGA display
• Qualcomm 7501A at 528MHz and TI Locosto processors
• GSM/CDMA
• 256MB RAM / 512MB ROM
• 3.2 megapixel camera

Maple (aka Excalibur 3G)

• 2.4″ QVGA display
• Qualcomm 7228 at 528MHz
• 156MB RAM / 256MB ROM
• 2 megapixel camera
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard
• ETA: May

The 2 specifications that stand out the most are the Thor and Firestone models. Thor sounds like a beast however it is worth noting this is the successor to the Athena and therefore is more of a UMPC. However the Firestone does sound mighty impressive with WM 6.5, Qualcomm 8250 at 600MHz and an 8 megapixel camera.

Well the MWC is over now but some videos are still popping up for various new phones that were shown off. One of which is the Samsung Omnia HD.

The phone boasts a 360 x 640, 3.7in touch-sensitive screen (720p) which also allows access to the phone’s 8Mp camera, which is equipped with face and smile detection - in addition to an anti-blink mode that should keep your photos free of mates with closed peepers.

The Omnia HD's HSDPA runs at up to 7.2Mb/s, with HSUPA also able to reach a reasonable 5.6Mb/s.

The HD model’s 8GB or 16GB internal memory can be boosted with the addition of Micro SD memory cards of up to 32GB capacity.

Bluetooth 2.0 and a USB port provide alternative ways of sending your chums those drunken HD videos snapped in the pub.

Well Microsoft have finally announced Windows Mobile 6.5 at the Mobile World Conference. They also announced several other services including:

MyPhone - MyPhone is a free online service that lets Windows Mobile 6.5 users sync their data to the cloud. The data it will synch includes SMS, media files, contacts etc. However it will not work with MS Exchange and will not be a full backup of the phone. The communication between the device and the cloud goes both ways: users can add files from a web interface to their phone.

Windows Marketplace - Windows Marketplace is an app store where users can find and download applications directly from the phone. Previously, it was possible to find apps and download them as .cab files, but the process was painful, especially when the search was done on the handset itself.

Windows Mobile 6.5 with have a variety of enhancements including new lock screen that provides dynamic notification to the honeycomb start menu, a finger-friendly Today screen and a new version of Internet Explorer Mobile that offers Adobe Flash lite support.

There is no specific date of release but the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 will use WM 6.5

ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley has been hearing from her sources that manufacturers will have access to Windows Mobile 6.5 code from April with the first devices arriving around September. She also reported that the beta Windows Mobile 7 code will be available November of this year with the first handsets following on in April of 2010.