Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

After finding out I was on crack this week, I was reminded of some information I had on BlackBerries.  As you know, Research in Motion ("RIM") is releasing their Pearl 8220, the first BlackBerry with a clamshell design.  Gadgetell got a chance to speak to RIM and found out that the keyboard on a clamshell BlackBerry will probably never be a full keyboard.

According to RIM, the clamshell format precludes the usage of a full keyboard.  The form factor would become very strange and users just wouldn’t go for it.  That does not necessarily mean that there are not other form factors that RIM could choose like a slider or even a Sidekick-style format. 

If you want a full keyboard and clamshell form factor, just get that out of your head.  It’s just not happening. 

A few more images of an upcoming Walkman handset from Sony Ericsson have recently leaked out.  This time the images are of a red slider-styled Rika.  It was not that long ago when we first saw the G705 make an appearance, of course, in addition to the new color, these latest images also clearly show the Walkman branding.

As of now, an official release date has not been announced. Unofficially, we are hearing that it will be coming sometime in October with sales beginning a little closer to the holiday shopping season.  Keep reading to check out another pic of the G705 in red…

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You have to love the stream of information coming from the FCC, at times they remind me of that friend who knows a little to much, but does not know when to keep their mouth closed. Well the latest bit of information to come is in the form of the Nokia 2680 slide that was recently pictured with a nice clear AT&T logo.

Overall the Nokia 2680 is not much to get excited about, its a pretty low-end slider-style handset that features a camera, music player and FM radio. However what is interesting about this comes from the original Nokia announcement for the 2680 which announced this as a handset for emerging markets, well it looks like AT&T now has an emerging market. I wonder how they would feel after hearing that.

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Motorola has added three new music phones to its MOTOROKR lineup, the EM30 candybar, the EM28 clamshell and EM25 slider phone. All three are geared for music lovers who can’t live without their mobile phones. Here’s a quick rundown of the specs and features of each of these new ROKR handsets.

First up we the ROKR EM30 candybar, which is equipped with Motorola’s ModeShift technology for illuminating the phone’s keyboards when shifting from phone to music mode. Aside from these, it also features an FM Radio in addition to its media player functionality, a 2-megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, a 3.5mm stereo headset jack, text-to-speech recognition, support for Microsoft music ecosystem, airplane mode, CrystalTalk technology, a microSD storage card slot and Windows Media Player 11 support. The ROKR EM30 is a quad band GPRS/EDGE class 12 phone which can give out 360 minutes of talktime and 300 hours of standby time.

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Yet another Sony Ericsson handset being leaked prior to an official announcement. The latest is the G705, a seemingly decent mid-range slider style handset.

The G705 is expected to feature a 2.4-inch display, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash, built-in GPS, 128MB of internal memory with a memory card slot for extra storage and running the A2 software platform. Sadly it seems that Sony Ericsson has decided to not include two important items, auto-focus for the camera, or a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Although nothing official has been announced, the rumor is calling for Sony Ericsson to officially unveil the G705 during an upcoming press event that is scheduled to take place in about two weeks. In the meantime keep reading to check out some pics…

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If Samsung’s INNOV8 i8510 8-megapixel camera is not enough to convince you to buy this new phone once it’s released, its video playback capability might make you do so. The i8510 has been certified by DivX, Inc., making it only the fifth DivX certified mobile handset made by Samsung.

Being DivX certified means the i8510 will make it easy for users to transfer video content from their PCs to the mobile phones through the phone’s TV-out feature allowing users to view PC-like high-quality images and DivX video when and wherever they want. The i8510 runs on Symbian 60 OS and as such, it can also boast of being the first Symbian-powered mobile phone that has been DivX-certified.

Read [Business Wire]

Samsung has officially unveiled their latest handset, the INNOV8 i8510 which is a slider-style model that packs an 8-megapixel camera. The camera, in addition to its high megapixel count also offers a xenon flash and can record video at up to 120 frames per second.

Aside from the camera, the phone itself has a decent set of specs which include a 2.8-inch 16 million color LCD, Wi-Fi, GPS, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, FM Radio with RDS and an accelerometer.

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Is Nokia about to release a new music based phone anytime soon? Well, if the product page of this “unofficially announced” Nokia 8208 is an indication, we may well be looking at a new Nokia slider waiting to be officially unveiled. The new handset is called the Nokia 8208 which from what we’ve gathered is being geared for a release in the Chinese market. Based on what we can see from the product page, the Nokia 8208 is being prepped to be another music phone which interestingly does not belong to the Nokia N-series models.

The Nokia 8208 is a two-way slider phone with key features such as a 3.0-megapixel camera, external keys for playing music, FM Radio, digital music player and a GPS service which is either a stand-alone receiver for other countries or a hybrid GPS receiver for China’s Unicom. In addition, the 8208 also features a dictionary for China Unicom. Other features of the Nokia 8208 include; a 2.2-inch QVGA display, Series 40 spec, Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

No word yet on pricing or a release date, or even whether this will be released in the US market. But since its a CDMA phone which supports access to EVDO Rev. A networks, we might be looking for a possible release sometime in the future.

Product [Nokia] Via [electronista]

Another newly leaked Sony Ericsson handset, this time it is the successor to the W580, which is dubbed the W595 and comes with a codename of Linda has just surfaced courtesy of Le Journal du Geek.

The W595 is a slider style Walkman handset and will feature an FM radio, the Walkman 3 player and will be running the A2 software platform. Similar to some other recent Sony Ericsson handsets the W595 will include Google Maps pre-installed and also have a 3-dimensional accelerometer.

While SE has been quite on the release date for the W595, it is rumored to be announced during July. Aside from the model pictured, it is also expected that it will be available in a red and white colored model. Keep reading to check out a few more images of the SE W595…

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AT&T has just added yet another color to the rainbow of Sony Ericsson W580 handsets already available. The W580 was previously available in black, white, gray, pink or green and it will now also be available in red.

Aside from the color addition, the features and pricing remain the same. The W580 is a music centric Walkman handset that has a slider style design. It features a 2.0-inch TFT display, a 2.0-megapixel camera and stereo Bluetooth support. It also has the exclusive Shake Control, which allows you to control the music playback such as skipping and playing tracks simply by flicking your wrist. The W580 remains priced at $99, which comes after a two-year agreement and along with a mail-in rebate.

Via [phoneArena]