Fujitsu LOOX F-07C – the dual boot (Symbian/Windows 7) smartphone now available in Japan (with NTT DoCoMo)

The LOOX F-07C (despite the weird name and model) is definitely a wonderful and unique device to own (unfortunately not available outside Japan). NTT DoCoMo described it as “World's smallest Windows 7 PC”. As described in the post title it is able to boot either into Symbian or Windows 7 (Home Premium SP1 Japanese edition). User can switch between Windows 7 PC mode and mobile phone mode with just press of a button. Read more at Fujitsu official website.

For Windows 7 to run gracefully LOOX sports a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z600 processor (running down-clocked at 50 percent only – perhaps to save the precious battery juice), 1GB (LPDDR400) RAM.

There is a 32GB eMMC SSD memory, expandable with microSD memory card

Screen - 4-inch SVGA (1024 x 600) TFT LCD display having 262K colors

Camera - 5-megapixel main (rear), autofocus camera plus a front-facing VGA camera

Battery – Upto 2hours backup when running Windows 7 and it automatically switches to mobile phone mode when battery is low

Other features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, two-year Microsoft Office Personal 2010 license, Internet Explorer 9 etc.

LOOX F-07C is now available with NTT DoCoMo in Japan.

Another video of a Windows Phone 7 (Mango) Nokia device leaks – shows a brief overview of a N9 like phone

No doubt that Mobile-World is eager to see the first delivery of Nokia-Microsoft romance and this is the reason why we are getting “in-utero” ultrasound images of premature (or perhaps full-term) device almost on a daily basis. In this series this video surfaced yesterday showing a factory overview of a WP7 mango Nokia smart phone in a short duration. Phone shown in the video looks almost identical to Nokia N9 but with a difference of a dedicated camera shutter button. The person in video gets the device out of a stealth-case as if he was instructed to hide it. Phone is shown to boot up into Windows Phone 7 pretty quickly (also switch off saying goodbye with the same speed). Interestingly two textual messages (“OEM” and “Not For Resale”) appear at the phone screen during the video.

The question is whether this is the Elop’s super-confidential “Sea Ray” phone or just a test device.

LG officially announces two affordable Gingerbread phones – the Optimus Pro and Optimus Net

Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) has been a high-end affair until now with almost no cheap budget phone out there having the latest Android version. But not anymore as LG recently launched two new affordable Gingerbread smartphones. Both of these are of the popular Optimus series – the Optimus Pro (LG-C660) and Optimus Net (LG-P690), to be precise.

As was already known Optimus Pro is a candybar QWERTY, 2.8inch-touchscreen phone, looks like a BlackBerry and is described here in this post. It offers the best of both a physical keyboard and touch display. There are dedicated keys for email and scheduler. Optimus Pro will be available in white, titan and black colors.

While Optimus Net is a full-touch phone featuring “Next Generation of Social Communication” - the “LG Social+” combining all the popular social networking portals in one widget right at the homescreen. With a single click, it enables users to update their status on Facebook and Twitter while reading friends’ social media feeds at the same home screen. This widget also enables one-click photo sharing with multiple social media accounts from the home screen. There is also a “LG SmartShare” feature which makes it easy to share content with other DLNA-enabled devices. Following are its others specs in brief -

3.2inch HVGA (320 x 480) capacitive touchscreen display

800 MHz Qualcomm processor, 512 MB RAM,

150 MB internal memory, 2GB MicroSD Card supplied (Expandable upto 32 GB)

3 Megapixel camera with Geo-tagging support, VGA @24fps video recording

HSDPA (3.6Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, A-GPS

Standard Li-ion 1500mAh battery

Both LG Optimus Pro and Net will soon (Next month) be available all over the world.

BlackBerry Bold (Touch) 9930 specs and features – a dual network (CDMA and GSM) smartphone

BlackBerry Bold 9930 (aka the Bold Touch) is perhaps the first BB smartphone having both GSM (quad band) and CDMA (dual band) radios. At 10.5mm it's perhaps RIM's thinnest handset yet.

It has got the new BlackBerry 7 OS

Besides it sports a fast 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor

However the screen size is a disappointing 2.8-inch (VGA resolution)

Main Camera is 5 Megapixel

8GB of internal storage (expandable with microSD card)

Bold Touch 9930 also has WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n along and Bluetooth 2.1 (obviously), a faster browser and voice-activated search, NFC support etc

The Bold Touch is expected to be available soon worldwide.

Nokia releases software update (firmware) for S40 “Touch n Type” phones with new left/right swipe function for easy navigation

Nokia recently released SW (Firmware) updates for its latest S40 “Touch n Type” phones. Nokia C2-02, C2-03, C3-01, and X3-02 users will benefit from this update. The main feature added to this update allows users to swipe left at the home screen to see all (including 3rd Party) apps in the “Collection”, and swipe right to see installed Games (native and 3rd party).

Currently this update is available via Ovi suite but Nokia promised to make it available Over The Air (OTA) as well in the near future.

New phones (Touch n Type models) have this update built-in so you can enjoy it out-of-the box.

UC Browser version 7.8 (official English version for Symbian, Java, Android and Windows Mobile) is available for download

Yesterday UC browser team updated their popular mobile web browser to version 7.8 with many improvements and bug fixes. For Android, It is the first major release after version 7.2 with more stability, faster speed and enhanced UI

As usual, UC team has given more emphasis on faster browsing speeds, more features and btter user experience. A new “View Image” option has been added to the menu to view all the pics embedded in a web page you are browsing. Frankly speaking I am not a big fan of UC Browser, yes it is fast (loads pages quickly) and has a very good download manager but it still has not come at par with Opera Mini or Bolt in terms of visual appearance of loaded pages. It looks somehow that we are indeed browsing at a mobile, perhaps it does not support latest web standards (HTML5, CSS3 etc). Anyway here are the main new features of version 7.8

1. 30% increase in speed over version 7.7

2. Full touch support including “swipe left or right” to move back or forward at a page

3. See all the images on a page one by one by flipping over

4. An advanced “Bookmark manager”

You can download UC Browser (for Java, Symbian 2nd, 3rd, 5th and ^3, Android, Windows Mobile) English version from www.ucweb.com

Skype Android App updated (v2.0.0.45) with two-way video call support for selected Android smartphones

Good news for Android smart phone users as the popular Skype Android app has been updated today with added support of two-way video call. This feature will work over both Wi-Fi and 3G network. Currently this version is available for a selected Android (2.3) models only that allow video calling (HTC Desire S, Sony Xperia Neo, Sony Xperia Pro and Google’s Nexus S). However Skype promised to add support for more models in the near future. Besides video calling you can also enjoy all the regular Skype goodies with this version –

1. Make and receive free Skype one-to-one video calls to and from other Skype users on Windows PC, iPhone, Mac, and other Android smart phones

2. Make cheap calls to landlines and mobiles around the globe

3. Send (ISD) SMS messages anywhere in the world at cheap rates

Besides added features there is also a redesigned UI with a new main menu from where you can navigate easily through your contacts, access your Skype profile to change personal details, use the dial pad to make calls, see the balance of your Skype Credit plus a new “mood message box” at the top of the menu to “share your feelings”.

You can download Skype Android app from the Android Market 

(https://market.android.com/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en) or visit skype.com/m using your phone's web browser.

Nokia N9 (MeeGo powered smart phone) - specifications, features, price and availability etc

Nokia recently announced the new N9 phone in Singapore. N9 is one of the “few left” MeeGo smartphones in Nokia stables as Stephen Elop confirmed that Nokia is not going to produce many of them in the near future. Anyway, Nokia N9 is definitely a smartphone with a difference (the first full-touch phone with absolutely no button at the front, new swipe UI etc). Have a look at its specs and features –

OS - MeeGo (Linux) 1.2 Harmattan

Display - 3.9″ Capacitive AMOLED touchscreen (FWVGA 854x480 pixels resolution) with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass protection

CPU - 1 GHz ARM Cortex Processor (single core), 1GB RAM

Camera - 8 MP Autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics, capable of recording 720p HD video (at 30fps), Touch-to-focus and exposure lock, Automatic Motion Blur Reduction

Memory - 16GB inbuilt (expandable up to 64GB)

Nokia N9

Others – 135 g weight, Black, Cyan and Magenta colors, NFC support, 1500 mAh battery, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), HSDPA, 3.5G, Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, Dolby Headphone and Dolby Digital Plus support, USB Mass storage

Expected price and availability

The price has not been made official yet. However expected price of Nokia N9 will be around $700 (Indian Rs. 30000 at the launch). It is expected to be available in the later half of 2011 in China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Russia and some of the European countries. However Nokia fans in USA, UK & India will have to wait a bit longer.

Official N9 page - http://swipe.nokia.com