Nokia Lumia 900 coming in Jan

Even as Nokia scrambles to fix a software glitch in the recently-launched Windows Phone-powered Lumia 800, here is a news leak that hints at its successor.

A leaked image that appeared on My Nokia Blog suggests that the Finnish giant is expected to unveil another top-end Windows Phone called Nokia Lumia 900 at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to be held in Las Vegas in January second week. The company is also expected to announce several other smartphones along with the Lumia 900 at the event.

According to Web reports, Lumia 900 which resembles Lumia 800 in looks, will come with a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display and will include the new Windows Phone Tango update. The smartphone is also likely to feature a front-facing camera and is expected to come in a variety of colour options.

Lumia 900 is also said to sport a 1.4GHz processor, an 8 megapixel rear camera with single LED flash. It is also rumoured to pack support for 4G LTE networks.

Nokia last week also announced that the next version of its Symbian OS will be called Nokia Belle. The OS will also be available soon on some of the older generation Nokia smartphones like, Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 and Nokia Oro.

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Xperia Ray and Active expected tomorrow

Sony Ericsson will launch two new smartphones in India on Tuesday. These devices are part of its Xperia brand. Both phones were announced in June during the CommunicAsia 2011 event in Singapore and feature the latest Android 2.3 operating system along with a 1 GHz processor. With this, the Xperia brand will include nine phones and there are more to come.

Xperia Active has a 3 inch reality display with Sony's Mobile Bravia display technology, and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video functionality. It is a dust and water resistant phone, and incorporates wet finger tracking which means that the phone works perfectly even when the screen or the user's fingers are wet.

Sony Ericsson's Xperia Active is for health conscious people and comes pre-loaded with sports apps that enable consumers to easily track their fitness levels. Users can set their ideal training route using the built-in GPS, barometer and compass. The on-screen heart rate and pulse can be monitored in real time (enabled by ANT+ wireless networking technology), while the iMapMyFitness app can monitor day to day performance. In addition, Facebook inside Xperia allows consumers to share their progress and experiences with friends.

The phone comes with a changeable soft-touch back cover, and detachable ear hooks for the portable handsfree that ensure the earpieces remain in place while you are running. It is packed with a wrist strap and arm case for use during workouts as well.

The phone is not the lightest — it weighs about 110.8 grams. Besides, the battery has a capacity of 1,200 mAh, which is measly for smartphones. We hope that Sony Ericsson has some tricks up its sleeve to make the battery last a full day.

The other new Sony phone is called Xperia Ray. Aimed more at style conscious consumers the phone comes with a sleek aluminium frame, reality display, mobile Bravia engine, and a 3.3 inch screen.

Xperia Ray, which also runs on the latest Android platform for smartphones (Gingerbread 2.3), is powered by a 1 GHz processor. The phone is quite sleek, with a thickness of 9.4 mm, and it looks gorgeous.

Besides, it has an 8.1 megapixel camera with Exmor R Sony camera technology and HD video functionality, which means that the camera will be one of the best, if not the best, in its class.

Xperia Ray incorporates a front facing camera and a scratch resistant screen with excellent resolution and brightness, and integrated touch keys. The phone is light at just 100 grams. All the other bells and whistles of the smartphone such as WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth and DLNA are all present.

Sony Ericsson has not announced the prices of its devices but we think they would cost between Rs 15,000-20,000.

T-Mobile to drop prices on smartphone plans

T-Mobile USA is throwing down the gauntlet at Sprint Nextel with its new smartphone price plans.

T-Mobile is set to announce Wednesday that it plans to cut the price of its smartphone plans. Most significantly, its mid-tier plan--which includes unlimited phone calls, text messages, and data--drops by $20 to $59.99 a month. In comparison, Sprint's comparable plan--which includes unlimited data, text, and calls to other cell phones--costs $69.99 a month.

The aggressive pricing illustrates the ultra-competitive environment, particularly for two smaller national carriers. Both companies continue to struggle with adding lucrative contract customers, and have been going after each other with discounts for months. T-Mobile, meanwhile, is trying to remain relevant even as it awaits a takeover by AT&T.

"Our goal is to get the next 100 million Americans on smartphones," said John Clelland, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile. "We really do think it's a key that unlocks the next wave of growth."

T-Mobile's unlimited data plans, of course, come with strings. The $59.99 plan allows you to eat up 2 gigabytes of streaming music, videos, e-mails, or uploaded photos. Once past that level, customers will receive a note asking if they want to upgrade their plan. If they choose not to, their connection will be slowed down to 2G speeds, a practice called throttling.

The new plans come after Verizon Wireless made the switch to a tiered data plan model, something rival AT&T did last year. Verizon Wireless' lowest-end plan costs $30 and has its cap at 2 gigabytes.

The allotment is sufficient for most people, with 2 gigabytes affording consumers the ability to stream 70 hours of music or 17 hours of videos each month. Sprint has argued that its data plans are truly unlimited, and don't include overage charges or throttling.

Clelland said that some consumers felt that a truly unlimited plan was too expensive, since many didn't believe they consumed that much data.

"That's why we introduced the notion of tiered high speeds," he said.

For heavier data users, T-Mobile offers a $74.99 plan with an allotment of 5 gigabytes of data before throttling, which is $15 less than before. It also offers a lower-end, data-less plan for $49.99 with unlimited phone calls and text messages. That plan was previously $65. If you choose to pay for the phone through monthly installments, you can sign up for a 200-megabyte data option for $5 a month. Traditional contract customers can get the same option for $10 a month. The plans will be available on July 24.

T-Mobile's plans are available to customers who want to bring their own phone, purchase a phone and pay for it in monthly installments, or buy a subsidized handset in exchange for a contract.

Nifty GPS mobile-phone apps take Garmin in entirely new direction

Is the venerable GPS navigation pioneer Garmin trying to put itself out of business?

With its new slate of mobile applications for $39.99, you might think so, because there’s no need to shell out hundreds of dollars for a portable navigation system when you can simply turn your smartphone into one.

Garmin is in fact right on target and right on time (barely) with its new batch of StreetPilot apps, a lower-priced alternative that actually does threaten to put portable nav systems out of business. Like so many companies at risk of being left behind by technological innovations, Garmin had to decide whether to hold firm in their comfort zone and hope that what renders them antiquated will turn out to be a fad, or to adjust their business model to accommodate the future.

Luckily it seems Garmin will not be going the way of Blockbuster Video or, dare I say, newspapers anytime soon, because their new product is just that good.

I tested the latest offering in its app series last week, its StreetPilot for Windows Phone, which is basically identical to its iPhone, iPad and Android counterparts.

The first thing I noticed is the speed. Having owned several Garmins over the years, I know the frustration of sitting around waiting for your route to calculate, a plight exacerbated in urban downtowns where high-rises obscure satellite signals. But these challenges didn’t phase the power-couple that was my Garmin app and HTC Trophy phone. The lag time was noticeably shorter, and the turn-by-turn voice commands always came in time.

I wish I had the foresight to order a car dock for the phone, which is essential if you want your smartphone to replace your portable GPS. You’ll need to plunk down anywhere from $10 to $30 for one of those. That said, I was impressed by how steady the navigation remained while getting knocked around in my center console.

More reasons the app is better than your portable GPS: address book integration that can navigate to your contacts’ homes, current weather and traffic updates at no additional cost, and best of all, maps that automatically update, so you don’t have to plug your GPS into your computer every time there’s a Big Dig road closure.

The only drawback is the battery life. Make sure you have a car charger, because this app saps the juice from your phone. Still, the $40 investment is well worth it, as was Garmin’s decision to begin to phase out those clunky portable GPS systems that were so recently the wave of the future.

iPhone 5 Could Sport New “Radical” Look

A larger, sleeker, faster iPhone 5 is coming this September, if a fresh wave of rumors is to be believed.

The latest phone from Apple will feature a brand new processor, a better camera, and could even sport a radical new look according to various media reports.

Bloomberg reports that the new device will include Apple’s A5 dual core processor, the powerful chip included in the iPad 2, as well as an upgraded 8-megapixel camera, over the iPhone 4’s 5-megapixel model.

The most drastic change though could come down to looks. Rumor has it that the iPhone 5 will be curvier and slimmer than its predecessor. “We have been told by a reliable source to expect a radical new design for the upcoming iPhone,” Boy Genius reported.

Apple has launched a new iPhone every June at its annual developer's conference ever since the smartphone's debut.

The company changed things up this year for what may have been a variety of reasons -- supply issues, the delay of the white iPhone 4, but the most likely factor is the launch of the new iOS 5 operating system which is to be released in the 3rd quarter of this year.

This generally falls in line with estimates of a September launch and also correlates to production estimates, according to Chris Caso at Susquehanna Financial.

"Our checks at multiple levels of the supply chain point to a one-to-two-month delay in the production start for the next-generation iPhone vs. our earlier view of a July production start.”

One-third of U.S. adults own smartphones

With so many manufacturers embracing Android, will it continue to be the defacto No. 1 mobile OS?
(Credit: CC jnyemb/Flickr)

Smartphone adoption is growing in many demographics, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.

The Pew poll estimates that 35 percent of American adults own a smartphone device. The data is based on a survey conducted in May, which found that 83 percent of U.S. adults have a cell phone, and 42 percent of those people have a smartphone.

The types of people adopting smartphones vary, but Pew found the highest concentration of individuals range from "financially well-off and well-educated; under the age of 45; and African American and Latinos."

Internet access is critical to smartphone owners: 87 percent access the Web or e-mail on their phone, with 68 percent of that group accessing such information on a daily basis. Nearly 25 percent of smartphone owners say that their phone is the primary Internet connection in their lives, rather than the traditional desktop computer or laptop; one-third of this group also lacks a broadband connection at home.

The most popular mobile platform--according to those polled--is Android, with 35 percent (among smartphone owners), followed by iPhone and BlackBerry with 24 percent, and Palm and Windows below 10 percent. Pew notes, "Android phones are especially common among young adults and African Americans, while iPhones and BlackBerry devices are most prevalent among college graduates and the financially well-off."

The results are based on a national bilingual telephone survey of 2,277 adults. A total of 1,522 interviews were conducted by landline phone, and 755 interviews were conducted by cell phone.