Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson, showed off a boatload of gorgeous new phones at events Friday and Monday. Most interesting among these are the first Walkman music phone for the US from Sony Ericsson, an ingenious origami-like e-mail phone from Samsung, a two-megapixel cameraphone from Nokia and the follow-up phones to the ultra-sexy Motorola RAZR.
Sony Ericsson breathes new life into the Walkman brand + other news
Announced on Monday, the W600 from Sony Ericsson is the first US phone with the Walkman brand name. As you'd imagine, it has a definite music focus: 256 MB of built-in memory (enough for 80 to 120 of your favorite songs) and comes with software to let you copy files from your PC to your phone. It's also very cute, a little swiveller with a handlebar-style antenna. It comes with a USB cable and some relatively high-quality headphones, and has a 1.3 megapixel camera on the back. The W600's European cousin, the W800, with its 2-megapixel camera and memory card slot failed to make the cut for the US market—Sony Ericsson just couldn't see parting with it for the under $300-magic-mass-American-market price.
We expect Bluetooth and EDGE on high-end GSM phones these days, but we were happily startled to also find the excellent Access NetFront HTML browser (www.access.co.jp/english/products/nf.html) on board the W600. This browser really lets you get at the Web via the phone's bright little 176x220 pixel screen; usually most non-smartphones provide only a pathetic WAP browser.
Our big question regarding the W600 is just how well it will perform as a music device? The onboard music player supports MP3 and AAC, but not WMA, and works with music ripped from CDs or downloaded from Sony's struggling Connect store. Sony Ericsson also promises a terrific 30 hours of music playback with the phone off, or 15 hours with the phone on. Still, we'll remain a bit dubious until we get it into our lab because the phone doesn't plug directly into iTunes, Musicmatch or Windows Media Player—it comes with its own music software. If you don't want to use Sony's software, you have to drag your music files onto the phone in Windows Explorer (or the Mac Finder), and create your playlists either through Sony Connect or on the phone. Apple rocked the music world with the iPod through ease of use. For the W600 to succeed, Sony Ericsson will have to do the same.
The new Z520a, a cute flip phone with removable colored covers, appears to solve all of the problems we had with Sony Ericsson's Z500a, currently on sale through Cingular. Both new Sony Ericsson phones have a new keypad which we like a lot better than the one on the Z500a and S700a. The keys are raised, instead of depressed; they're also much larger, and domed.
The Z520a takes a few cues from Siemens' CF62T, too: like the Siemens phone, it has a handle-like loop antenna at the top and pulsating lights around the sides that change colors based on who's calling you. Adding to the playful feel, the Z520 comes with an unusually good game onboard: New York Nights, which we gave a 4.5 rating to recently. For more serious work, it's quad-band, so it can roam the world flexibly. If the Z520a lives up to its promises, it will be an excellent Cingular phone in the $100 range.
Sony Ericsson also announced the J300a, a basic GSM candy-bar phone coming in various fun colors, a Bluetooth 2.0 headset and an innovative car kit with a large, dashboard-mounted screen.—Continue reading
Samsung came by our offices Monday afternoon with some innovative phones that are so secret, they wouldn't even allow us to take pictures of most of them.
Most startling among them was the SGH-D307, the first dual-fold phone in the US. Opened one way, it's a standard flip phone with an unusually long keypad. Refold it and open it horizontally, and it's a messaging device with a full QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is usable in all sorts of applications, too, making the D307 superior to phones like Motorola's A630 and LG's F9100, which only let you use the keyboard in certain situations. Bluetooth also comes standard with the D307, which will be offered by a big GSM carrier in August or September.
The A920 and A940 will probably be the first phones for Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network, though neither Sprint nor Samsung would confirm this (we're making a somewhat risky guess.) The A940 is a large, two-megapixel flip cameraphone with a huge lens built into the side. It looks a lot like the Nokia N90—same swiveling screen, same Cyclopean eye (but no bulge on the back.) Samsung also tossed in a memory card slot, Bluetooth, a speakerphone, speech recognition and a business card scanner for what may become the cameraphone to beat when it comes out.
The A920 is music focused where the A940 is about video. We know precious little about this one, though it has a scroll wheel on the front for navigation, like the Motorola E725. Otherwise, its features are a lot like the A940's, though it replaces the 2-megapixel side-mounted camera with a more conventional 1.3-megapixel unit. Both phones are coming this fall.
The i645 is also quite enticing: it will be the first EV-DO, Windows Smartphone in the USA. Samsung is saying late summer for this flip phone, but that's dependent on whether carriers pick it up.
If all those sound too expensive, keep an eye out for the SGH-E635, an utterly tiny slider phone that will be available on T-Mobile in the next few months. A little black lozenge, the E635 curves in slightly when you open it, making it more comfortable against your head than most sliders. It has a VGA camera and speakerphone, but no Bluetooth. No mind; this phone is more an affordable fashion statement than the latest in high tech.
Puffy Combs would probably prefer the new white version of the SGH-P207, coming next month from Cingular. It's just like the black P207 we've already reviewed , but white. It looks great. For a different fashion statement, Samsung also showed us a Betsey Johnson version of their chameleon like E315 phone; we've reviewed other fashion versions of this phone before. The Betsey version is pink with little rose petals all over the outside, comes with a purse and a bunch of signature screen savers, and will cost $250.—Continue reading
Nokia announced seven new phones Monday, at least three of which will probably come to the US.
Nokia's flashiest new entry, the 6265 will be their flagship CDMA phone. It's a squarish slider with Bluetooth and a 2-megapixel camera on the back. For a non-smartphone, it's stuffed with features: it takes Mini-SD memory cards, has an extremely sharp 320x240 pixel display, plays MP3 and AAC music files, and supports Bluetooth stereo headsets. It runs a new version of Nokia's Series 40 OS (the one on most Nokia non-smartphones) with high-resolution graphics that take advantage of the new screen.
The 6265 is a lot like the Samsung MM-A800, Sprint's new 2-megapixel camera phone. So expect the Nokia model to show up on Verizon, Alltel, or US Cellular.
In an entirely different vein you'll find the Nokia 2125, a tiny, cheap, tough little candy-bar phone that you should expect to see in prepaid packs for around $50. It has a color display, speakerphone, and an easy to dial, rubberized keypad. There's even a flashlight in the top. But this phone's selling point will be price and durability—we wouldn't be surprised to find it in TracFone or 7-11 packs.
For GSM customers, the Nokia 6060 is a low-cost black flip phone aiming for a stylish crowd, the folks who would otherwise look at the Samsung P207. It's sleek and black, with MP3 ringtones and chrome detailing, but limited features; hopefully, it will also come at a limited price.
A tasty little slider phone, the Nokia 6111 probably won't come to the US, and that's a pity. It's the cutest slider we've seen in a long time, without the blocky edges or clunky size of a lot of other phones. The tiny 6111 has a megapixel camera on the back, uses MP3 ringtones and supports push-to-talk over GSM networks, which is popular in Europe but hasn't happened in the US yet. The phone also has Bluetooth and an FM radio.
Nokia also brought by a model 6170, a squarish GSM flip phone with a masculine look that's currently on sale from a few small regional carriers in the US. We'll review it within the next few weeks. The 6170 is a pretty basic cameraphone as far as its features set goes, it has a VGA camera, a speakerphone and EDGE data transfer, but no Bluetooth. It's also pretty thick, but its shiny stainless-steel casing stands out in a crowd, and it should be available for around $100 if you buy it through a carrier.
We've seen the Motorola V6 PEBL and V8 SLVR before, but at Motorola's event on Friday we got even closer to the new phones and spotted a new variant of the PEBL in a velvety black finish.
