Play has started the sales of Nokia C1-01. The handset features a web browsing, FM radio, music player, Bluetooth, GPRS, e-mail as well as chat.
The Nokia C1-01 offers microSD compatibility, enabling users to store up to 32 GB of music, photos or other media. In addition, owners of the Nokia C1-01 will also be able to take video and photographs using the built-in VGA camera.
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is all set to begin the sales of Xperia arc SO-01C smartphone nationwide from 24th March.
The arc is powered by Android 2.3 and supports download speeds of 14 Mbps. It is a touch screen mobile featuring Wi-Fi connectivity, FM Radio, GPS, Camera, Email, Instant messaging, 3.5 mm audio jack, Google Maps and Media Player.
Tigo Rwanda has launched a dual-SIM handset, which it claims is the first offer of its kind on the Rwanda market. The phone comes with a price tag of US$41.19.
One of the slots is fixed for a Tigo SIM card, and the other is open for any other SIM card. The phone also comes with a video camera, a still camera, FM radio, internet, MP3 player, Bluetooth, a memory card slot and a color screen.
InfoSonics has announced its new Verykool S810 handset and first customer shipment to Latin America.
The S810 is the second phone developed entirely in-house by the Verykool R&D centre in Beijing.
The S810 is a septa-band phone (tri-band in 3G plus quad-band in GSM), bar type phone with a QWERTY keypad and 2.4″ QVGA TFT LCD screen, based on WCDMA/EDGE technology.
The S810 handset also features 2-megapixel camera and video camera with 3GP voice and video recording and playback, FM radio, MP3 and MP4 capability, as well as Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity with 3.6 Mbps USB tethering and PC synch.
The device also offers data capabilities with USB 1.2, SMS/MMS messaging and e-mail, 23MB internal memory, expandable to 32GB, with speakerphone, 72 polyphonic ringtones, 3.5mm audio jack and stereo headset included.
Japan based AKAI Mobiles has announced the launch of their first triple SIM phone ‘Trio’. After the launch of range of dual SIM phones, the mobile phone manufacturer has launched India’s first triple SIM, triple standby GSM phone with multimedia features for a price range of US$71.40.
Trio comes with 2-inch TFT screen, 1.3 megapixel camera with digital zoom, dual language support and audio player. The handset hosts an inbuilt sound recorder and video player with video recording capability. Other basic features available in the phone include FM Radio, Bluetooth (A2DP), USB, E-book, and gaming.
The phone will be available across 15000 retail outlets around India.
According to Mr. Pranay Dhabhai, Managing Director, AKAI India, AKAI is the first multi-national brand to be introducing a complete GSM mobile phone based on triple SIM platform. This concept has been ideated keeping in mind the conventional user who wants the utility of multiple connections without getting burdened with multiple handsets. They always strive to give their customers value for money products and they hope that this launch will hold the purpose. ‘Trio’ will cater to the requirements of all the segments of consumers across categories.
Wind River has teamed with VIA Telecom on a multiyear project, codenamed Kunlun, to help bring low-cost Android smartphones featuring high-end capabilities to regional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for the Chinese code division multiple access (CDMA) market. The collaboration delivers an integrated software and hardware Android solution to help OEMs meet network operator requirements and deliver Android devices to market faster with greater engineering efficiencies.
The Android software stack at the heart of Kunlun leverages Wind River Platform for Android, a validated and fully compliant commercial-quality software platform based on the Android software development kit. Designed to lower total cost of ownership and accelerate time-to-market for OEMs, Wind River Platform for Android has been customized to meet the acceptance criteria for Chinese operator networks. VIA Telecom delivered the 3G EVDO Rev. A and 1xRTT modem and telephony software and created the PCBA (print circuit board assembly) phone board hardware. While Kunlun initially targets the Chinese market, this integrated software and hardware offering provides a common PCBA platform to create Android devices that can be easily adapted for other markets.
“Working closely with VIA Telecom, Wind River is able to help OEMs gain quick entry into the lucrative Chinese mobile market by delivering high-quality and low-cost Android devices certified on Chinese operator networks,” said Michael Krutz, vice president of worldwide solutions and services at Wind River. “Kunlun is a reliable turnkey software and hardware Android platform that allows OEMs to bypass complex, expensive and time-consuming engineering hurdles such as integration and testing and focus their efforts on the features that will help them differentiate themselves from competitors.”
“Kunlun helps eliminate significant cost and engineering obstacles for entry into the Android market for OEMs. Our work with Wind River allows us to now deliver Android to our large customer base by providing a powerful yet affordable integrated solution to help regional OEMs get their Android devices to market quickly,” said Dr. Ker Zhang, chief executive officer of VIA Telecom. “It was critical to find a partner who had the expertise to smoothly integrate the many complex elements from each contributor and possessed knowledge of Chinese operator and Android requirements. Wind River seemed the obvious choice.”
“Android’s rapid growth and demand in the market place have made it a key platform for developers and OEMs,” said William Stofega, program director of Mobile Phone Technology and Trends at IDC. “China is the world’s largest mobile market and a prime target for Android devices at all levels, especially low-cost yet feature-rich smartphones.”
Using the flexible Kunlun PCBA platform, regional OEMs are able to bring low-cost Android devices that feature high-end capabilities to new markets. Devices developed from the Kunlun PCBA platform may include features such as GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, camera, touchpad, keyboard and microSD for external memory.
As the primary system integrator of software components, Wind River provided critical elements such as overall system integration, optimization and testing. Wind River Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) for Android, an automated software testing solution for Android-based devices, was used to rapidly test and validate software and prove compliance with the Android Compatibility Test Suite. Wind River FAST for Android can be customized for leading silicon architectures, across any device manufacturer or operator in need of testing Android software stacks.
Additional information about Wind River Platform for Android is available at http://www.windriver.com/solutions/mobile-devices/android.html.
About Wind River
Wind River, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation, is a world leader in embedded and mobile software. Wind River has been pioneering computing inside embedded devices since 1981, and its technology is found in more than 500 million products. Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, Calif., with offices in more than 15 countries. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com or blogs.windriver.com.
ZTE has announced the launch of the ZTE Blade smartphone in France. The new smartphone runs on Android 2.1 and features a 3.5 inch capacitive touch-screen, which supports multi-touch and runs at a resolution of 480×800 pixels.
ZTE-BLADE includes a 3.2 MP camera, alongside other vital functionalities of contemporary smartphones such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, email, internet, video player / recorder, MP3 player and FM radio. The phone will also be delivered with a 2GB microSD card to help users make the most of its multimedia capabilities.
ZTE’s smartphone weighs in at just 110g and includes both brightness and proximity sensors. It is embedded with a Qualcomm QCT MSM7227-1 microprocessor and a micro USB 2.0 port.
Sony Ericsson has finally launched the Android-based XPERIA X8 and the GreenHeart Cedar. The XPERIA X8 is launched with Android v1.6 Donut, but will be upgraded with v2.1 Eclair before the end of the year.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 features 3-inch touchscreen display. The device runs on Android mobile OS. It features 3.2 megapixel camera, 1200 mAh battery and WiFi, games, video, internet and more . The device internal memory is 128MB expandable upto 16 GB. The phone additionally features NeoReader barcode scanning app, USB mass storage, Google services, Android Market Client, Gmail, Google Talk, and YouTube. There is no official announcement on prices but the phone is expected to cost around US$256.37.
The other handset launched by the company is the Sony Ericsson Cedar, which is a low budget phone and offers 3G capability. The company has used recycled plastic in Cedar, and has a low power consumption charger, no hard copy of manual, waterborne paint, and small packaging.
The phone features a 2MP camera, VGA video recording, Music player & FM radio. The device has a Bluetooth and also holds 3.5 mm jack for audio. The phone has 2.2 TFT screen with 262K colors and comes with Applications for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.
Cedar comes with a micro USB charger, and is available in two colors, black/silver and black/red. Company has not provided any details about the price yet, but is expected to be around US$104.75
