Mobile phones

With an anticipated price of less than €40 SIM-free before tax, the Nokia 5030 XpressRadio is a basic colour phone with an FM radio, loudspeaker and built-in antenna.

Similar in many ways to the Sony Ericsson R300 Radio, the Nokia 5030 XpressRadio is aimed primarily at emerging markets where the radio is an important source of information and entertainment.

It's quite a simple phone in most respects - this is a basic Series 30 handset with a 1.8" 128 x 160 pixel TFT display, a flashlight, 2.5mm audio socket, a built-in loudspeaker and MP3 grade ringtones.

There's a great big 1020 mAh battery that can provide 10 hours talktime, 21 days standby time or 24 hours of radio playback. Not bad for a phone that weighs just 88 grams.

Because Nokia understand that some people in this market segment share their phone with others, the Nokia 5030 supports multiple phonebooks with a maximum of 500 total entries. You can also store 250 SMS messages, and there's a prepay tracker and speaking clock.

With its black, matte exterior, the G1 Android phone resembles other HTC handsets such as the HTC Touch. The phone feels solid in the hand and seems well-built, including the mechanism that allows the touch screen face to slide out and reveal the full QWERTY keyboard.

The appearance of this phone is not sexy or trendy and in fact, the minimalist black exterior of the phone reviewed here and slightly angled lower edge -- where the trackball and buttons are located -- give the phone an unusual, utilitarian look. The G1 from T-Mobile also comes in shiny white and graphite versions. The appeal of this phone not the exterior but what is inside, the Android OS and potential for a great variety of third-party applications.

The soft-touch exterior makes the phone easy to grip and at 2.2 inches wide by 4.6 inches long and 0.7 inches thick, which is nearly the same size as the iPhone 3G, only thicker to accommodate the slide-out keyboard. At 5.6 ounces, the G1 is heavier than the 4.6-ounce iPhone 3G and is definitely bulkier when slipped into a pocket.

South Korean phone maker LG Electronics today launched its flagship Arena (KM900) multimedia handset in Europe.
As the world's first handset to use Dolby Mobile technology, the Arena delivers surround sound for video and enhanced sound for music.

Its 3.0-inch WVGA screen has four times sharper resolution than standard QVGA screens, so users can watch DVD-quality DivX or Xvid movies. It has D1 recording to capture DVD-resolution video.

Hundreds of music and movie files can be added with its 40GB memory, including 8GB of internal memory and a microSD slot.

The battery offers up to 30 hours of MP3 playtime and 300 hours of standby time.

In addition to the battery, GSM cellphones require a small microchip, called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM Card, to function. Approximately the size of a small postage stamp, the SIM Card is usually placed underneath the battery in the rear of the unit, and (when properly activated) stores the phone's configuration data, and information about the phone itself, such as which calling plan the subscriber is using. When the subscriber removes the SIM Card, it can be re-inserted into another phone and used as normal.

Each SIM Card is activated by use of a unique numerical identifier; once activated, the identifier is locked down and the card is permanently locked in to the activating network. For this reason, most retailers refuse to accept the return of an activated SIM Card.

Those cell phones that do not use a SIM Card have the data programmed in to their memory. This data is accessed by using a special digit sequence to access the "NAM" as in "Name" or number programming menu. From here, one can add information such as a new number for your phone, new Service Provider numbers, new emergency numbers, change their Authentication Key or A-Key code, and update their Preferred Roaming List or PRL. However, to prevent someone from accidentally disabling their phone or removing it from the network, the Service Provider puts a lock on this data called a Master Subsidiary Lock or MSL.

Pack of English Dictionaries is a collection of translation and explanatory dictionaries for mobile phones with Java-technology containing the high-quality dictionary databases from the world's leading linguistic companies and working under the powerful SlovoEd engine from the undisputed leader on mobile software market.

Quick and precise translation, user-friendly interface, rapid access to the word bases, large amount of word entries, low memory consumption will be great advantages of SlovoEd English dictionaries. It can be useful for language introduction during a journey abroad and ideal for urgent translation of the word or phrase.

Work, study and travel with a reliable rich-functional dictionary engine. Now you don’t need to waste time on looking up the unfamiliar words in numerous paper dictionaries! Get detailed and exact translations of words in any forms straight from your mobile phone!

Mobile phones often have features beyond sending text messages and making voice calls, including Internet browsing, music (MP3) playback, memo recording, personal organiser functions, e-mail, instant messaging, built-in cameras and camcorders, ringtones, games, radio, Push-to-Talk (PTT), infrared and Bluetooth connectivity, call registers, ability to watch streaming video or download video for later viewing, video calling and serving as a wireless modem for a PC, and soon will also serve as a console of sorts to online games and other high quality games.

The total value of mobile data services exceeds the value of paid services on the Internet, and was worth 31 billion dollars in 2006 (source Informa). The largest categories of mobile services are music, picture downloads, videogaming, adult entertainment, gambling, video/TV.

Nokia and the University of Cambridge are showing off a bendable cell phone called Morph.

Nokia is currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, with a global device market share of approximately 40% in 2008. Other major mobile phone manufacturers (in order of market share) include Samsung (14%), Motorola (14%), Sony Ericsson (9%) and LG (7%). These manufacturers account for over 80% of all mobile phones sold and produce phones for sale in most countries.

Other manufacturers include Apple Inc., Audiovox, Benefon, BenQ-Siemens, CECT, High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), Fujitsu, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Neonode, Panasonic, Palm, Matsushita, Pantech Wireless Inc., Philips, Qualcomm Inc., Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), Sagem, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens, Sendo, Sierra Wireless, SK Teletech, Sonim Technologies,Spice, T&A Alcatel, Huawei, Trium and Toshiba. There are also specialist communication systems related to mobile phones.

There are several categories of mobile phones, from basic phones to feature phones such as musicphones and cameraphones, to smartphones. The first smartphone was the Nokia 9000 Communicator in 1996 which incorporated PDA functionality to the basic mobile phone at the time. As miniaturisation and increased processing power of microchips has enabled ever more features to be added to phones, the concept of the smartphone has evolved, and what was a high-end smartphone five years ago, is a standard phone today. Several phone series have been introduced to address a given market segment, such as the RIM BlackBerry focusing on enterprise/corporate customer email needs; the SonyEricsson Walkman series of musicphones and Cybershot series of cameraphones; the Nokia N-Series of multimedia phones; and the Apple iPhone which provides full-featured web access and multimedia capabilities.