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

In the old days pay as you go phones were cheap, cheerful and do everything required out of a phone one would need. They text, they ring. Nowadays, although not packing the super technological goods of an iPhone, HTC Desire or Galaxy S they still do their job and have basic extras. The LG “Cookie Fresh” GS290 is just that. As one of the cheapest touchscreen PAYG phones on the market (from £40ish) you wouldn’t expect too much, but if you want to know more on what we thought of it, then please click on and read our review.

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Yes that’s right Espoo revealed yesterday 3 half decent phones that are very friendly on the old pocket so if you’re a scrooge or just don’t want a top of the range phone then look here. What they have revealed are the E5(cheaper version of the popular E72), the C6 (an N-series-esque slider)and the C3(a super cheap Blackberry style messaging phone).

We’ll start with the E5. Running Symbian S60 3rd edition on a 2.4” QVGA screen it lacks the style of the E72 but still packs the connectivity. HSDPA, WiFi and a-GPS are all available. It has Exchange support so is a great little emailer, a 5MP camera, microSD slot and a 3.5mm headphone socket. Not bad eh?? Well how about all that for £160? Bargain.

The C6 is a lot like the N series phones but on the cheap. 3.2” 640x360 touchscreen this time with Symbian S60 5th edition this phone has a slide out, landscape, 4 line keyboard to type away those texts or update your facebook status. It also has a 5MP camera and a front mounted camera. Connectivity wise it’s got HSDPA, WiFi and a-GPS and also has an FM Radio. Memory comes in the form of a microSD slot. Price? £195. Again a bargain.

The C3 is the cheapest of the three and as it comes in beige, black/blue and bright Pink we’re guessing its aimed at the Pay as you Go market mainly due to the measley price of £79(yes thats right). Unfortunately though its specced at £79. Running Symbian S40 on a 2.4” 320x240 screen. Again microSD is the memory although it will playback music and has the usual 3.5mm jack. With a full QWERTY though you should be able to fly those messages out and it also has WiFi for hotspot surfing.

All 3 will be available over the next few months.

Adobe those wonderful chaps who develop Flash, have announced a full version(the same that your home PC or Mac runs) of there media software that will be available for your mobile, no more “Lite” versions.

This will be great news to most people who use there blowers to surf the internet and want full content support for websites. If you have a Windows Mobile device or a Palm(from 16th October) you will be able to pick it up before the end of this year. Those of us sporting Android or Symbian phones will have to wait a bit longer with an “early 2010” date pencilled in. Blackberry support is still being developed according to Adobe but there has been no mention of iPhone. Surely  due to the size of the iPhone market this can’t last too long.

Adobe have said full Flash support will bring “uncompromised web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) video”. It will also improve general performance of phones visuals and will also bring mobile friendly support for touchscreens and also improve the quality of downloadable apps.

CAN’T WAIT!!

Earlier this year phone manufacturers announced to bring in a universal phone charger in a bid to improve the mobile industries environmental outputs. Today an agreement was signed at European Parliament to see it happen. Many of the phone companies responsible for giving us a million different chargers agreed to sign up for it but now the deal has gone through the European Commission, it can finally go ahead.

However it’s not actually law, but completely voluntary. How good would it be though to finally be able to use everyone else’s chargers without having to carry yours with you everywhere you go. The new chargers will use mini-USB and should be arriving with our phones some time next year…..hopefully

Source : Electricpig

On first looks the Arena looks like a smaller, slightly fatter iPhone. The screen takes up most of the phone with three buttons at the bottom of the screen and a small camera at the top. On the back of the phone, the camera lens is very small as to is the flash. The brushed metal finish is attractive  but the plastic back seems to get dirty quick. Being a touchscreen phone thats very iPhone looking, this is obviously LG’s attempt to draw in those customers that Apple has attracted. However a smartphone this is not but this doesn’t stop it being a good all round phone.

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LG seem to be ignoring any crisis in the economy and planning on releasing 125 new individual handsets globally in 2009.

LG are planning on releasing 25 phones in the UK alone.

This means they will be releasing more than 2 phones per week globally and nearly 1 phone every 2 weeks just in the UK! Crazy!

Still, I am sure it will mean they will be releasing a phone that has to appeal to every possible market and hopefully improving their market share.

With more and more phones concentrating on the camera aspect of the phone it may come as no surprise that Casio has decided to get involved in all this cam-phone malarkey.

Casio will be releasing in Japan a new EXILIM powered mobile phone featuring an 8.1 camera with a 9 Point auto-focus and a wide angle, the W63CA. The phone will also feature a 3.1-inch WVGA screen.

Casio have decided to go with a dual LED flash over a Xenon flash, which is a bit of a shame as LED flash tends to be a bit rubbish.

Ok so this may not be as easy to remember as the name Omnia but Samsung have announced the new I7110. This is a S60 and Symbian OS-based, and will be showcased for the first time at London's Symbian Smartphone Show. This bar type Smartphone features 2.6’’ QVGA AMOLED screen, FM radio, DNSe 2.0, GPS Navigation (Geo-Tagging, Pedestrian & Driving), optical mouse, accelerometer, 3D games (FIFA 2008, Asphalt), with DLNA compatibility.

It also comes with Bluetooth v2.0, USB 2.0, WiFi, 50MB memory, an external memory slot (up to 16GB), 5Mpix camera (CMOS with AF and LED flash). It's equipped with a video player (DivX / H.263 / H.264 / WMV /MP4, RV), and music player (MP3 / AAC / AAC+ /eACC+ / WMA / RealAudio).

Press release after jump

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