Men Free Blog

Though O2 spends plenty of time getting cozy with Quanta for its Windows Mobile needs, that doesn’t mean they’ve thrown HTC to the curb. The latest two HTCs to get the O2 treatment — in Germany, anyway — will be the Herald and Elf, released as the Xda “terra” and “nova” respectively. As you might recall, the Herald is the facelifted Wizard, replacing O2’s own Xda mini S and offering all the same slide-out QWERTY action in a 17 millimeter shell; 3G data is sadly missing, though O2 is going to one-up the competition here by rolling out Windows Mobile 6 Professional on this bad boy out of the gate — expect it in May for €150 (about $200). Meanwhile, the Xda nova (also a 2.5G device) brings Windows Mobile to the masses with a relatively low price point — €100, about $130 — while still managing to pack 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD expansion, and version six of Microsoft’s ubiquitous platform. Look for it a month after its Xda terra stablemate in June.

Read - O2 Xda terra
Read - O2 Xda nova

If you’re in Germany this week and have a chance to hit the CeBIT show, you may be able to peep the new BlueBird BM-500 WM Smartphone (yes, it’s Windows Mobile 5-based). This bar handset — part of the PIDION line — features a rather nice 2.8 inch touch-screen, EV-DO data speeds, built-in 802.11b WiFi, Bluetooth, the now-standard 1.3 megapixel cam and the less-often used miniSD card slot. Changes we’d make? Get microSD in there and dump the miniSD, upgrade that cam to 2 megapixels and get WM6 in there. Seriously — WM5? The older BM-200 and BM-300 had this way back when. Come on now; WM5 is so January 2007.

[Via Wired.com]

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Pure speculation on our part here, but doesn’t it make sense? The U740 is getting a heck of a lot of love from the Verizon camp these days, after all. Since Cingular was the first to take a chance on the form factor, we reckon it only makes sense that we might see this (or something very much like it) on AT&T down the road — especially considering how far the concept has come from the forgettable D307. The P110, first mentioned at 3GSM last month, is quite a looker with a display that can be rotated in a ridiculous number of ways; features include a VGA camera, Bluetooth 2.0, and A2DP support. Plenty to love over the older D307, though that ugly tri-band radio is going to have to get patched up if we expect to see it stateside.

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Here’s a novel idea: take a standard clamshell mobile and add in a media player so you can rock out to tunes right on your phone. But wait, we’re not done! Give it some gold accents, too, to make it a sort of fashion accessory. Think it’ll fly? Alright, we’re just having a little fun here; the new 598 from Philips really isn’t anything special, although the black / gold color combo is a little unique. Features include a microSD slot to facilitate the aforementioned rocking out, 220 x 176 internal and 64 x 64 external displays (with the latter being of the monochrome OLED variety), 128MB of internal storage, and a 1.3 megapixel cam. As we’d expect with a Philips piece, this one makes do without GSM 850, so we wouldn’t count on a US launch.

[Via Slashphone]

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We like to rag on the SMT5700 every so often — not because it’s low-end, not because it lacks 3G, not because it’s not the prettiest smartphone we’ve ever seen. No, we give the SMT5700 a well-earned dose of crap because it earned FCC approval over a year ago. That’s pretty insane even by US carrier standards, and new intel over at Boy Genius Reports indicates that AT&T may finally be ramping up to sell this thing. As we mentioned, it’ll be pretty low-end on account of its EDGE data and 2 megapixel cam, but hey — in the year 2008, there’s no good reason folks shouldn’t be able to get a capable smartphone for next to nothing on any major carrier, in our humblest of opinions. The site doesn’t seem to know when exactly it’ll launch, but they’ve posted a few puzzle piece-like press shots of the phone to whet our appetite (or get us to gag, depending on your disposition toward these kinds of phones).

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Mere mortals will need to wait until the third quarter of the year — if not longer, depending on their region and tolerance for some probable price gouging in the early going — to get their hands on the mighty Nokia N96. On the other hand, Mobile-review apparently knows the right hands to shake and eyes to wink to get hold of a prototype unit extraordinarily early, and they’re taking full advantage of the opportunity. A few hours of your time devoted to the novella of a review will net you a deep understanding and appreciation for the N96’s strengths and follies, but in a nutshell, the site seems to come away with a pretty ambivalent opinion of a device that should be knocking everyone’s socks off — especially for a sticker price that’ll hover in the $800 arena. Problems included a penchant for picking up dirt and fingerprints (the price you pay for a beautiful glossy face, we suppose), a cramped nav key layout with the tricky touch-sensitive Navi Wheel front and center, audio performance that wasn’t bad but was expected to be far better in light of the dedicated DSP, and a “shovel”-like feel in the hand, a symptom of the phone’s generous dimensions. Everyone owes the production version of the N96 a chance to show its true form when it’s released later this year — and hey, at least Nokia’s got a checklist of things that need improvement in the prototype now — so we’re keeping our chins up that this’ll still make the N95 8GB a proud daddy when it comes time to hand over the crown to the Nseries kingdom.

[Via Tech Digest and NokNok]

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It turns out that AT&T won’t be the only network picking up the Americanized version of LG’s Prada — the blacked-out, touch-tastic Vu — come this May; Rogers wants in on the action up north of the border, too, and they’ll be keeping pace with their GSM brethren below the St. Lawrence by launching the phone in the very same time frame. We can only assume that Rogers will be launching the CU915 variant (or TU915, as it’ll probably come to be known to them) since the carrier doesn’t feature a MediaFLO network that would warrant the need for the CU920’s additional hardware and expense. As we already know, the phone will feature a 2 megapixel camera, HSDPA, microSD expansion, and it comes as no surprise that the phone will support access to the full host of Rogers’ media services. It looks like pricing will be announced closer to launch, but you might want to just start putting away the occasional dollar now, because this one ain’t exactly going out the door free on contract if you catch our drift.

[Via Mobile In Canada]

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Those eagerly anticipating the LG Vu now have a little more to go by — at least visually, anyway. The specs floating around jibe with everything we’ve heard, and apparently include a nice 3-inch 400 x 240 display. Head on over to Phone Arena for more.

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Remember the KU990 Viewty? Of course you do, well, meet its twin — but decidedly duller — sibling, the KE990 — notice that E? That means EDGE. This handset apparently brings most or all of the same goods to the table as the KU990 did but lacks HSDPA and dumps tri-band for dual. So yeah, rather than stuffing this thing with another HSDPA band — ah-frickin’-hem — LG has chosen to head in another, less interesting direction by stripping it of some of what made it glorious in the first place. Of course, if rumors of it going to China prove true, we get that removing the 3G radio will improve battery life and shrink the price a bit for that market — as not all markets want that 3G speed — but this still hurts as we’re way cooler with more, better, faster around here. Hopefully we’ll hear a little something announced at CTIA but until then, we’ll simply pretend none of this ever happened.

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It’s not a surprise, but it’s still overwhelmingly refreshing to see Sony Ericsson finally (and we do mean finally) bringing some 3G action onto AT&T. The “a” variant of the glossy, colorful Z750 clamshell will be hitting AT&T in an official capacity come early April, featuring an OLED external display cleverly concealed by the phone’s translucent shell, a 2 megapixel camera and media player both backed up with Memory Stick Micro M2 expansion, stereo Bluetooth, and of course, that lovely HSDPA 850 / 1900 that’s eluded Sony Ericsson’s AT&T offerings for far, far too long. Look for it to go out the door for $49.99 after a $100 rebate.