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

Yes that’s right German sports giant Puma have teamed up with Sagem Wireless to create this nifty little blower aimed maybe towards the fitter/healthier members of the public. It’s been doing the rumour rounds on the internet recently and has drawn quite a bit of attention but now its official and looks pretty good.

Small, Palm Pre(minus slider) looking the phone is obviously designed better for your pocket than most new smartphones but what might draw a few people to it is on the reverse, that’s right a solar panel, allowing the phone to be charged anywhere and everywhere(providing there’s light obviously ) Apparently an hours charge in “medium sunlight” will give you 2 hours of music playback or allow you to send 30 messages. A full charge gives 5 hours talktime, 350 hours standby and 24 hours of music playback. So what’s inside and what’s it do?

The 2.8” screen maybe small in comparison to most phones but Puma has assured that the UI is “thumbable” allowing one handed use of the phone. Its features include a 3.2MP camera, Bluetooth, Pedometer, GPS(for tracking and Geo-Tagging Snaps) 3D Accelerometer, stopwatch, cycle tracker all helpful when in the great outdoors or down the gym.

Also it has a built in FM radio and can pull live sports feed from Puma World and mCommerce. There’s an app which dials straight into the Puma online shop allowing the user to order new gear or customize things like trainers then order them. One feature in particular that good be seen as fun and also annoying if you frequent public transport is the music player. When playing a software vinyl player appears on screen allowing the usuer to Virtual Scratch the tunes.

Due in April, early reports indicate it should be available for around the £250 mark.

HTC MANIA OR WHAT??? Now this is the icing on the cake for HTC at Mobile World Congress, not only with the Desire and HD mini have we seen the potential of two great new mobiles but then they saved the best till last with this bad boy.

Like Apple’s MacBook Pro these smartphones are made from a single block of Aluminium set with black plastic making them look the dog’ danglies. Rocking a similar shape to last years Hero phone, the bottom of which protruded like Jimmy Hill’s chin, has been made a little less obvious and has been given a new optical trackball for extra responsive use.

Housed within the lovely metal is the usual gubbins of 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth running the latest Android: Eclair 2.1 OS and HTC’s own “Sense” UI. It also sports a 5MP camera with a flash so you can view decent quality pics on its AMOLED screen.

What puts this one above the other two is the raw speed that the phone can function thanks to the UI. Multitouch is available allowing the user to flick quickly between the Android screens and packs full of features for quick and easy social networking use. Again due in April this could be one to watch!

Now here we have another phone from HTC which doesn’t seem to be breaking too many barriers by appearing to be an updated version of one of its current line of mobiles. Like The Nokia N97 got its Mini, this is the HD2 but mini.Originally this phone was going to be named the “Photon” it’s one of the only phones HTC managed to keep under wraps before the congress. If you remember the HD2 was a very solid good all-round phone, maybe a little big but HTC again appears to have delivered that in a smaller form.

Running Windows Mobile 6.5.3(hasn’t 7 just been announced at the congress? :s) in conjunction with HTC’s Sense UI the HD mini has a 3.2” HVGA capacitive touchscreen more than capable of multitouch functions. It also has a a 5MP camera on the back but unfortunately it lacks a flash so no snaps in the dark i am afraid, well lit areas only.

Other exciting features lie in the software of the HD mini. Firstly it can share its 3G internet goodness to other Wi-Fi enabled wireless devices, acting as its own little Wi-Fi hotspot, WOW! This feature is exclusive to Windows Mobile, HTC phones. Another funky little addition is something that HTC calls “Manner Mode”. When you pick up your phone your ear-shattering ringtone quietens down. Its little touches like this that make HTC such a great competitor in todays mobile market. Like the Desire we’re looking at a Q2 release.

HTC were busy yesterday in Barcelona showing that the new boys in town mean business with a bunch of great phones will be hitting our shelves in the coming months which will make you think twice about getting an iPhone or Nokia.

The Nexus One appeared to be the next best thing but didn’t seem to live up to the task with reported faults and poor reviews, however HTC have come up with the Desire. Now basically it looks like a Nexus but HTC have said its got a “different construction” basically I think that means they’ve ironed out the problems.

Running Android 2.1 with a 3.7” OLED screen being run with Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon it has also been given HTC’s new optical trackpad. The main difference however is the UI. Flash Lite 4 software, a little menu that pops up in it’s browser allowing cut/copy/paste/translate and wiki text to mention a few tweaks. This phone will be available on Vodafone(who announced shortly after the release of the phone it will be carrying the three HTC phones we will talk about today) around the April/May time.

With Mobile World Congress happening right now in Barcelona, expect a plethora of new mobile phone tech to bombard us over the coming week.

Firstly we have Samsung’s Wave S8500. Basically this is the updated version of its popular Jet phone that debuted last year. What makes this better you ask? Well it’s Samsungs first phone to have its brand spanking new Super AMOLED display. The original AMOLED screen was great, sharp details and deep colours, but was difficult to see in sunlight. Now that’s been dealt with what you’re getting is a 3.3” WVGA screen that works superbly.

Next its also the first Samsung phone announced that will use its brand new “Bada” operating system. This works alongside TouchWiz 3.0 to provide efficient touchscreen use and widgets with a high end smartphone UI. One thing that looks great is the “Social Hub”. This is a collective inbox that puts all your messages, whether they be from IM, text or email all into one inbox.

Loos wise its a lot like a thinner version of the Jet. Specs wise it’ll pack a 1GHz processor, 3G, Wi-Fi HSDPA and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, a 5MP camera capable of 720p HD video recording. It’ll also have GPS and have support for MP4, WMV, DivX and H.263 and H.264.

No prices yet but we’re looking at a release time of April.