Men Free Blog

Looks like some fool revealed Amp’d’s next phone by leaving a user manual up on their downloads site. The irrational obsession with Motorola continues with the Amp’d Q, and while they obviously didn’t say when it’s coming or for how much, if you didn’t already take the chance to buy this thing on Sprint or Verizon (and aren’t interested in waiting for its predecessor, the Q q9) then you’ll finally have a much hipper carrier option for taking one home. [Warning: PDF link]

[Thanks, Lee H]

Cellphones these days find themselves in the “one size fits all” realm as well as the “specialized niche” realm. From top-end cameraphones to Firefly numeric keypad-less handsets, there’s one for everybody. Well, if you’re in Japan and have kids, turn your attention to the new Papipo! handset that looks more like a cereal-box prize than an actual piece of equipment. The Japan-only Papipo! was meant to look like a toy phone (and it is), but this one actually makes calls and plays games. We’re not sure how much design finesse it took to produce this unit, but the Papipo! comes in five designs for girls and two designs for boys. Themes? You get Hello Kitty, Tamagochi and Dragons along with other kid-only themes. The Papipo! also comes with a camera onboard and sells for $41US in Japan.

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It’s hard to be shocked by a domestic market Korean phone these days. After all, we know they’re going to rock; that’s a given. The IM-S200K is the latest from Pantech’s upmarket “SKY” brand, and needless to say, there’s nothing too shocking here: 1.3 megapixel cam, media player, voice recorder, and some sort of “dual UI” for business and personal use. Oh, one more thing: the S200K’s claim to fame (we saved the best for last, naturally) is going to be its rather sizable scroll wheel (taking the place of a traditional d-pad) with EL backlighting. Look for it on your next visit to Seoul for €328 (about $430).

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Remember the twist-a-riffic Nokia XpressMusic 3250 – that S60 baddie with the rotating keypad? Apparently there’s some legitimacy to the odd form factor, because rumors are swirling that a new 5700 model will update the 3250 with some of the 5300’s thoroughly modern elements. The QVGA display, 2 megapixel cam, and UMTS radio are all well and good, but there’s nothing like a little S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 to brighten our day in the land of music-oriented mobiles. Since this is far from official, we’ve got no word on pricing or release date — but given the rather professional-looking stylized graphic here seemingly advertising the aforementioned model, our money is on it being real (just don’t expect it this side of the pond).

[Via Slashphone]

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Usually it’s not all that noteworthy when a popular product drops one of its features, but when that device is the Treo 680, and that feature is the VGA camera, then it’s certainly notable to your security-conscious businessfolk. Even though this is the Treo that’s supposed to draw in the non-techie consumer — and even though this SKU is barely advertised — Brighthand is reporting that a camera-less 680 is indeed available, although you’ll have to make a few phone calls if you want to to secure one. As usual, you’re gonna pay the same amount whether you want the cam or not, so don’t think you’re gonna save any loot by forgoing the crappy shooter. Hit the Read link for more details, or more specifically, for actual proof that this mythical creature exists (hint: peep the small footnotes at the bottom of the page).

[Via Brighthand]

As S40 phones go, the recently-announced 6300 from Nokia sits near the top of the hill — on paper, at least — with a stylish 13.1 millimeter profile and a reasonably well-stacked spec sheet. Does it hold its own in the real world, though? phoneArena put the thin candybar through an extensive battery of tests, coming away with a reasonably positive impression overall. As 2 megapixel cams go, the 6300’s was a bit weak, the volume rocker on the phone’s side was a bit funky, and we’re not too sure how we feel about a handset with a meager 9MB of internal storage these days, but for the uptight, non-smartphone-minded target demographic, the 6300 should fill the bill quite nicely. Click on for the full review, but don’t get too attached if you’re in the US — the lack of 850MHz is going to bum you out.

Update: There is a version of the 6300 with 850MHz support in the cards, though it wasn’t the version phoneArena rocked. Sorry for the confusion! [Thanks, Pablo]

Not to suggest there’s any… oh, you know, “service” you can subscribe to in these parts that rocks mobile TV over the DVB-H airwaves, but an FCC approval is always a good sign — and the presence of an upstart service provider working its rear off to get picked up by a carrier always helps, too. The 3.5mm jack-sportin’, S60-havin’ N77 from Nokia is the latest DVB-H equipped handset to get signed off by the FCC, and while we don’t have any word of a GSM 850, UMTS 850 / 1900 version floating around, we can’t help but hope that an eventual Modeo success could lead to phones like this magically gaining bands; until then, we’ll just be tooling around with our Foreseers.

We all love our 9mm slimphones these days, but sometimes the need for a celly big enough to bear hug just overcomes us all. Enter the “MegaPhone” by SysOpen Digia. This beast from the east is a 5′7″ fully functional handset with real buttons as big as a fist (we think, anyway) and a very, very large color screen, although the rez may be a little blocky. This unit appears to have S60 inside it for use by customers who no doubt will be drawn to a life-size handset that actually works as a functional prop. Now, can it make calls? Doubtful, but we’d love to see a comparably sized Bluetooth headset for this puppy.

[Via textually.org]

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From the land of blurry pics and dodgy fan renderings come these two potential gems. Engadget Chinese posted these pics today right under a pic of a couple pairs of iPhone panties – no, seriously, we can’t make this kind of thing up. The specimen on the left is allegedly codenamed “Sneff” — though worthy of note is that a moderator at SEworld (see left pic watermark) has the same name, so take from that what you will. The device lacks any visible keyboard, so we are guessing that it boasts a touchscreen or is hiding a sliding keyboard or both. Could this be a hint of what the next Sony Ericsson smartphone design might look like? The more-believable-because-it-is-blurry cellphone on the right is tapped as the W750, it does indeed share some design features with the recently announced W880 but even money is on complete fabrication. CeBIT may offer some answers as early as next week, and if not there is always CTIA.

[Via Endadget Chinese]

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Yeah, mobile phones have been status symbols and fashion accessories for some time now, but the concept of a designer’s name taking top billing in the product name is a fairly recent development. If Gucci really does have a handset baking in the oven, we’re guessing the Italian icon isn’t doing the heavy lifting of the development all by its lonesome, though we haven’t an inkling who might be involved. Heck, we can’t even really make out what kind of form factor we have going on here, and all we’ve got is this one lonely pic up on flickr to go by. Of course, LG and Prada have set the bar pretty high in this arena, so if this is legit, Gucci had best come out with guns blazing.

[Thanks, Jack]