The Samsung GALAXY Nexus (Image: Samsung/supplied)

The flagship phone for Ice Cream Sandwich – Android 4.0 – is on our review desk. However, does it live up to the hype what Google and Samsung have produced, or will it fall flat like many Android phones? Plus, is ICS an improvement to the Android ecosystem?

Terence Huynh reviews.

Design & Features

As we may have noticed, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a slim touchscreen phone – not as slim as the Motorola RAZR, but is pocketable. The phone also features a unique curve, mainly because of the 4.65-inch curved Super AMOLED display. Speaking of the display, the colour reproduction is good and are vibrant (and it should, especially since it is considered the flagship phone for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich). The phone also features a dual core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM; and 16GB storage that is not expandable via a microSD card.

As well, you have the standard headphone jack and a microUSB port at the bottom; a volume rocker at the left side; and power button on the right. You also have a camera – 5 megapixel that can record 1080p video – with a LED light at the back; in addition to a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera.

The body, typical of Samsung’s high-end smartphones, is perfection. It is beautifully designed. However, playing with the phone longer than anticipated, I started comparing it to the other phones I had to review, and the phones I previously reviewed – and it has a problem.

The body feels bland. It’s perfectly designed, but just doesn’t excite me as much – and it’s because of the colour, or lack thereof.

After playing around with the Nokia N9, you do sort of miss the bright and screaming colours of magenta and blue (I did have the Black version to review, but I did also play around with the two colours).The shade of black and/or grey and a mesh pattern at the back of the phone just gets boring when you see it on every single phone.To be fair, it’s not Samsung’s fault. Every single phone manufacturer is guilty of simply sticking to a monochromatic colour scheme.

Being the flagship phone of Android by Google, it does have to add hardware features that developers will be (hopefully) using for their apps. This phone includes Near Field Communication (NFC) and is one of the few phones that supports Mobile High-Defintion Link (MHL) – where you can connect the phone (via microUSB) to your HDTV. It is also sort of a way to reproduce 1080p content since the phone lacks a microHDMI port.

The Camera

The camera touts “zero shutter lag”, and the claim does stand up. The photo is taken and saved instantly when you press the on-screen button to shoot. However, while it does have continuous auto focus – meaning, it will constantly readjust to make sure the image is mostly clear -  you can get a bit of blurriness in the photo. It also comes with a panorama mode, so you can take 360 degree shots at ease.

In all honesty, the photos could have come out better. The camera’s weak spots are in low-light conditions. The flash when doing close-ups over-saturates, and does kind of make a person look like he or she has jaundice. Not a great look.

But the big improvement has to be the interface. It’s clean, simple and the settings are not hidden through menu, after menu. It has been a bit simplified, and stripped down to the basic features of zoom, changing the white balance, turning off or on the flash and changing the quality of the photos. It doesn’t have the weird oddities such as effects – like HTC has done; but who cares about the effects. All of us want simple snapshots.

Ice Cream Sandwich also lets you have quick access to the camera in the lock screen. So now, you’ll never miss a moment.

Ice Cream Sandwich

Now, let’s get straight to the main business – it is currently (at the time of writing) the only smartphone running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that is available in Australia. Combined with the dual-core processor, it runs smoothly in comparison to the heavily customised versions from manufacturers – I still have bad nightmares from Motorola’s MOTOBLUR.

It pretty much takes Honeycomb and slaps it onto a smartphone. However, ICS ditches all physical buttons on the front of the phone, instead relying on the static buttons on the bottom of the screen – representing back, home and a way to see currently running applications. Also new to ICS is the ability to now close apps in the background, a new data usage manager, screenshot capture and the ability to create folders. Widgets now are in its own tab with the Apps menu, and like Honeycomb, you can now resize them.

But those are considered minor to Google. It is touting two things – Android Beam and Face Unlock. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test Android Beam since we don’t have another phone with us on our review desk that has NFC, but its a new way to share contacts, web pages, YouTube videos, apps, etc without using the cumbersome pairing process of Bluetooth.

Face Unlock, however, isn’t all that great either. The ads somewhat blemish the uselessness of this feature. In fact, Google admits that it is “less secure than a pattern, PIN or password”. So why put it in there? Because simply, iOS and Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have it. To its credit, it managed to unlock my face instantly – after tying to get it to angle correctly in the circle so many times; but it didn’t work in different lighting conditions (it could be because parts of the face were obscured). So, if I was you, I’ll stick with the traditional pattern or PIN.

However, back to ICS – in its purest form, it is brilliant. Perfectly designed (and as a typography nerd, the font Roboto looks really good for the display) and its complexities mostly simplified, it is the best version of Android yet – despite the gimmick known as Face Unlock.

Conclusions

Calling this phone the best Android phone might be a bit over-the-top, but definitely is one of the better smartphones in the market – if you ignore the gimmicks. The camera does let it down a bit, but most of the hardware doesn’t. The processor makes ICS run smoothly; and ICS itself makes me want to convert to an Android fanboy simply because of its design.

But of course, Samsung will create a better version for its Galaxy line, like every other manufacturer – so I’ll be eagerly awaiting what manufacturers will release with ICS at this year’s Mobile World Congress.

The Nokia Lumia 800 - its first new smartphone running WP7

Despite reporting an operating loss of over 1 billion dollars, Nokia managed to pull off a feat to mollify the investors – 1 million Lumia Windows Phone device sales. That’s actually quite a respectable result considering the device has yet to make a showing in markets such as North America and Australia.

But aside from that, Nokia’s future doesn’t appear to be looking any brighter than it was a year ago, in fact maybe it’s even a little bleaker. What Nokia use to have in the market was exclusivity and scale. The tandem of those two factors ultimately led to Nokia’s commanding success.

Nokia has neither of these two factors today, aside from the exclusivity of being a 100% committed Windows Phone partner, but really that’s only working for Microsoft. The N9 running Meego Harmattan was certainly an exclusive, but with the promised commitment to run full steam with Windows Phone, Meego Harmattan’s potential may never be realised, or at most, a peripheral pursuit.

Of course, it’s not like Meego Harmattan had a big chance anyway.

And scale, is something Nokia simply can’t obtain given the R&D required to build any good smartphone, especially if you’re Nokia and really trying to deliver with a bang. Nokia’s now signature polycarbonate shell in the N9 and Lumia 800, 900 models is a feat of engineering that simply couldn’t have been achieved if the company had floored it and delivered a tsunami of Windows Phones in generic form factors and hardware variations.

The only segment where any economy of scale is possible, is in feature phones, once Nokia’s money-reeling gem but now declining precipitously in developed markets. Of course, there’s still money to be made there, and with most cellphone vendors relaying their focus to encompass smartphones 100%, Nokia is really in a position to take full control of the feature phone market. But there’s a reason why the world and the industry is stepping with both feet into the smartphone pool, it’s because not doing so would be committing to a world that will cease to exist in a very short time.

For Nokia, it’s even more crucial than this. As a company undergoing a brand image overhaul, investing excessively into feature phones would do nothing but hamper Nokia’s planned course to become viewed as a forward thinking company. Consumers can’t think of Nokia and see number keypads anymore.

Aside from the fact that Nokia no longer has significant leverage in the development chain to pump their business anymore, there’s also the issue of getting consumers to sign a contract to their phones which run on a platform that hasn’t gained the amount of traction that the company probably thought it would. Aside from getting the nod from reviewers, consumers are yet to see the great value proposition in Windows Phone.

Sure, 1 million sales exhibits promise, but it’s early days. The company has most likely skimmed the piece of market that gravitated towards Nokia in the first place, but from now on, it’s war and Nokia needs to pose some real fight – not only to lure consumers away from the eminent iOS and Android, but also to funnel them away from the other Windows Phone vendors in HTC, LG and Samsung among others.

The latter, an easy task that the company should win, but the former being a spectacularly tall order.

It stands to beg the question of why Nokia didn’t pursue the Android paved path in the first place. I can imagine it being an appealing option, Nokia’s acclaimed hardware quality and design paired with an OS that has solidified its position in the marketplace. It’s always nice to be on a winning team. But Nokia took a risk with Windows Phone, as a consumer I applaud the path they’ve taken, and from Nokia’s vantage, I would’ve done the exact same thing.

Success in Windows Phone will yield a significantly greater reward that would be irksome to supplant, whereas success with Android would simply be providing another option, as opposed to a different option.

It’s an uphill climb from here, and by sucking dry their loyal customer base in the first million sales, Nokia is essentially running on fumes. But since when is business not an uphill battle?  Build beautiful things, make sure people know about it and you can’t really go wrong.

Okay, it’s now our turn to review HTC’s 3D phone. It records, takes pictures and plays 3D content without the need of those awkward and annoying glasses; and it also touts some top-of-the-range hardware specs. However, does it stand out from the crowd with its 3D, or is it just a gimmick? Terence Huynh reviews.

Design and Features

The HTC EVO 3D is unapologetic in being ‘bulky’ in comparison to the iPhone 4S, and moves away from the trend of slimmer smartphones with beautiful designs. A rubber back and an assortment of buttons everywhere, the phone feels very manly. And it’s heavier, weighing at 170g. It is wrapped in a dark-grey body with just a bit of red where the camera.

However, packed inside is a 1.2GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 1GB of internal storage that is also expandable via microSD, and support for 3D with two 5-megapixel lenses. I’m guessing the second camera is adding to the thickness to the phone. As well, it features a 4.3-inch qHD display – one of the biggest screens from HTC – where the colours are vibrant.

The phone is one of the few 3D phones out in the market, and will let you play 3D content, take 3D pictures and even record 3D video in 720p video quality. And don’t worry, you will not be wearing any glasses to get it working. The company uses something the Nintendo 3DS uses, and it’s called parallax barrier technology. Downside is that it does cause some eye-strain if you are using it for too long, and that you’ll have to get it in the right angle or else the effect disappears. However, the effect is really good for video and games.

In terms of multimedia, you’ll not going to be impressed. Despite having some big specs, for some reason, it only can play out 720p files not 1080p files – which you would want if you were going to play these on your phone. Granted, it’s a minor issue. There is no HDMI output on this phone, but you can always buy an adapter for its microUSB port to HDMI (again, that feels like another hurdle).

The Camera

The quality of both picture and video is great, though not excellent. You can switch between 3D and 2D modes with a mechanical switch, and there is a dedicated physical camera button – which is something that I would love to see on phones. It does have auto-focus, so it’ll constantly adjust the lens – the sound does get a tad bit annoying. However, it doesn’t adjust to compensate for the dual LED flash when taking photos in a short range. So, you should be accustom to your flash options.

The camera also comes with some effects – including some effects that you can find in Instagram or Camera+ for iOS. The effects vary in effectiveness – such as the soft-focus feature. You can see one instance of the effect below.

Making your own 3D content, however, is another story. The pictures look alright, but you can’t really tell the difference between taking the same photo in 2D. And as well, staring at the screen for a long time, especially for video, does hurt your eyes – so you’ll not going to get a good video to share to your friends.

Performance + HTC Sense

The phone performs really well with no lag issues, and this is because of its 1GB of RAM and 1.2GHz dual core processor. The phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with its HTC Sense UI – and of course features its own applications. I should point out that its own applications – including its own Twitter application Peep is not a good replacement for the Official Twitter application. So I suggest you go and download that app first. Other novelties you may find on this phone include a Flashlight, which is using the dual LED flash from the camera.

I personally felt the keyboard to be awkward to use and that could be because of its size, but also the sensitivity of the keys. Pressing the right key I want shows me another key next to it sometimes.

Battery life on the phone is okay, but better than some other HTC phones. Heavy users can expect this phone to last them around a day. Lighter users can expect to see this phone’s battery life expand to two or three days.

Conclusions

The phone may be fat – in comparison to other smartphones in the market – and 3D is a bit of a gimmick (one that can hurt your eyes), the phone still proves to the phone with the required features we want – a camera that works, a phone that does not lag and it is usable. The iPhone 4 and 4S encompasses all of these qualities that what every consumer wants in their phone, so the HTC EVO 3D does not fail to impress.

A newspaper article has stated that Nokia Australia could be releasing the Lumia 800 – the first (and currently, flagship) Windows Phone 7 phone by the company – in March this year. Also coming in March is the Lumia 710, a lower-end version of the phone.

Nokia Australia’s Chris Carr confirmed to the Australian Financial Review that the Lumia 800 has distribution arrangements with all three major carriers, while the Lumia 710 currently has none finalised. Nokia previously did state that the phone would be reaching in Australia sometime this year, but an actual date has not been confirmed.

The Lumia 800 features a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, a 1.4GHz single-core processor, 16GB of internal storage and an 8-megapixel camera. It also shares the same body as the Nokia N9 – and Nokia has been touting the phone as the “first REAL Windows Phone”.

The Lumia 710, on the other hand, features most of the same features – except it has a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of storage, and a cheaper body.

The Lumia line and its Windows Phone 7 deal has propelled Nokia back into the spotlight, and more attention has been given to the Nokia-WP7 tie up as it means that: 1) Nokia managed to ditch the long-struggling Symbian OS as its flagship platform; and 2) Microsoft is now getting serious with its mobile strategy with a big manufacturer.

But should Nokia Australia be wary of a March launch? Mobile World Congress is in the last week of February, and Nokia is expected to make some more announcements about Windows Phone 7 – alongside every other Android and Windows Phone 7 manufacturer. But, those phones usually come out in June (or even later for Australia).

We’ll keep our eyes on this product.

Telstra’s first 4G smartphone from HTC has now got a name and a release date. Called the HTC Velocity 4G, the phone features a 1.5GHz dual core processor, a 4.5-inch touchscreen and an 8 megapixel camera.

The phone also has 16GB of internal storage that is also expandable via an SD card slot, and will run – on the images – Android 2.3 Gingerbread rather than Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a front-facing camera, which has a 1.3 megapixel lens. In addition, it has the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB port and Bluetooth/Wi-Fi support.

Telstra is now accepting orders – but the smallest plan will see you paying an addition $10 on top of the $59 plan for the “handset payment”. The other plans do not have that – but at least you’ll get 2GB of data or more.

The phone will be launched on January 24 at its stores and via its partners, but preorders are being accepted now. Also, do remember that 4G isn’t everywhere – so if you don’t live 10km within the metro areas, then it will fall back onto 3G data.

LG has revealed their newest smartphone that appears to be only available in the US. Dubbed the Spectrum (by LG), the phone touts the fact that it has a 4.5-inch True HD IPS display – the very same technology LG uses for its own HD televisions.

In addition, the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass. Other specifications include a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, and a 16GB microSD card included. The phone will run initially on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich available in the first half of the year.

The most attractive feature, supposedly, is the fact that it has ESPN’s ScoreCenter app preloaded, meaning that you can follow your sporting team from your phone. In addition, those with the phone have exclusive access to a 720p HD feed if connected to 4G or Wi-Fi.

The phone is an exclusive to Verizon and will be out in January 19 in the US. No word on Australian availability – and the likelihood of this arriving seems pretty slim.

Gallery and press release below.

VERIZON WIRELESS AND LG MOBILE CONTINUE LEGACY OF INNOVATION BY OFFERING A TRUE HD MOBILE EXPERIENCE WITH SPECTRUM™ BY LG

Latest LG Smartphone Boasts True HD IPS Display, Verizon Wireless 4G LTE, Dual-Core Processor and ESPN ScoreCenter App with Exclusive HD Feed

LAS VEGAS – From the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Verizon Wireless and LG Mobile today announced Spectrum™ by LG smartphone, exclusively for Verizon Wireless. Spectrum is the first smartphone for Verizon Wireless to feature a 4.5-inch True HD In-Plane Switching (IPS) display, the same display technology used in premium LG HD televisions. Intensifying its HD capabilities, Spectrum by LG will give customers exclusive HD access to the ESPN™ ScoreCenter application. Spectrum will be in the Verizon booth (Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall, Booth #30259) and LG booth (Las Vegas Convention Center, Central Hall, Booth #8204).

ESPN’s ScoreCenter app is supported by an exclusive HD video feed, giving customers the exclusive access to ScoreCenter stats, images and videos in 720p HD. Scoreboards and live game details include in-game stats, news and video. Personalization features allow fans to customize their ScoreCenter experience by highlighting their favorite teams and leagues from around the world, all in crystal clear high-definition.

Showcasing LG’s True HD technology, Spectrum by LG supports 1280 x 720 resolution and offers one of the brightest and sharpest displays available on a mobile device. Spectrum’s 500-nit display luminance and Real-Stripe RGB pixels offer users clear viewing in direct sunlight and accurate true-to-life color rendering.

Spectrum also features a Qualcomm® 1.5 GHz dual-core processor combined with 4G LTE connectivity for robust power, multitasking and download speeds. Verizon Wireless leads the way in 4G with the fastest and most reliable 4G network in the United States, covering more than 200 million people in 190 markets.

Key features:

• 4.5-inch True HD IPS display provides natural colors and brilliant, undistorted HD images in 16:9 aspect ratio. Pictures and texts are incredibly sharp with 329 pixels per inch (PPI) screen density.

• Protected by Corning® Gorilla® Glass, the True HD IPS display uses Real Stripe subpixel arrangement so images never get blurred.

• Android™ 2.3 Gingerbread (Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade available the first half of 2012); support for Google™ Mobile Services including Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Talk™, Google Search™, Google Maps™ and access to more than 300,000 apps available to download from Android Market™.

• Preloaded Netflix app allows Netflix subscribers to stream the latest movies in high-definition quality.

• Qualcomm 1.5 GHz dual-core processor makes multitasking seamless. Customers can surf the Web, check email and update social networks effortlessly.

• ESPN’s ScoreCenter app offers the most comprehensive sports coverage available on an Android device whether you follow the NFL or Premier League, ICC Champions League or MLB™, NASCAR or Formula One™. Customers can follow teams from more than 500 leagues around the world with an exclusive 720p high-definition feed for Spectrum by LG while connected to the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network or Wi-Fi.

• Spectrum supports Dolby® Digital Plus, which allows users to maximize their HD multimedia experience. Dolby Digital Plus can stream up to 7.1 channels of surround sound through home entertainment systems.

Additional features:

• 8-megapixel rear-facing autofocus camera with LED flash to snap beautiful pictures and 1080p video capture

• Front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat

• SmartMovie HD app—create and edit HD videos right on the Spectrum by LG

• Mobile Hotspot capability—share 4G LTE connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices

• Bluetooth® Version 3.0

• 16 GB microSD™ card pre-installed with support for up to 32 GB microSD card

• SmartShare—share media wirelessly to DLNA®-enabled devices

• HDMI mirroring capable via MHL

Pricing and availability:

• Spectrum by LG will be available on Jan. 19 in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement.

• Customers who purchase a Spectrum by LG will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan beginning at $39.99 monthly access and a smartphone data package starting at $30 monthly access for 2 GB of data.

Also announced by Motorola before CES was the MOTOLUXE, a phone that appears to also target the developing markets except with some premium features. The phone has a sleek design, runs on Gingerbread and has an 8-megapixel camera, something you don’t expect for a phone targeting such markets.

Hardware-wise, the phone features a 4-inch display, 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM. On-board storage is 1GB, and it appears that it will not be expandable – meaning that you are stuck with a measly 1GB to store apps, data and music. Ouch.

MOTOLUXE’s camera also has autofocus with 4x zoom. In addition, it has a front-facing VGA camera and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. Also, apparently, it comes with a lanyard slot that lights up to notify you of a missed call, new text or email message. Essentially, it’s like the charm from HTC’s Rhyme.

Full gallery and video are below.

The Motorola DEFY is about to get a lower-priced cousin with Motorola announcing before CES 2012 the Motorola DEFY MINI. Featuring the same water-resistant, dust-proof and scratch-proof (thanks to a Gorilla Glass screen) claim, it features lower specs to possibly attract emerging markets.

The DEFY MINI runs on Android Gingerbread (2.3.6), a 600MHz processor and 512MB of RAM. It features a 3.2-inch display, a 3-megapixel rear camera with flash, a VGA front-facing camera, and the standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3.5mm headphone jack. The phone comes with 512MB of storage with expandable memory support that can hold up to 32GB via a microSD card slot.

The DEFY MINI will be out in China under the name XT320, before reaching selected European and Latin American countries in February. Since this is attracting developing countries, you’ll won’t expect this in Australia unless it is a cheap pre-paid phone.

Full gallery and a video can be found below.

Announced at the same time as the Galaxy Ace Plus was Samsung’s Galaxy M Style smartphone – another phone that features a brushed metal design, a 4-inch Super AMOLED display and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Other specs include a 3-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera, an 1GHz single core processor, 4GB of internal storage and Bluetooh 3.0 support. And that is what we can decipher from a (admittedly, bad) Google translation – so if you know Korean, do comment below if you tell us anything else about this phone.

The phone is meant to be an “entry-level” phone and come in three colours – Silver, “Blue Black” and Pink. The price tag is somewhere around US$500, but no release date as of yet.

We are really approaching CES when we see an increase number of gadgets being released. Samsung has announced a brand new smartphone, the Galaxy Ace Plus. And obviously, it suggests that it is a big improvement to the predecessor Galaxy Ace.

The phone features a 3.65-inch display, a 1GHz processor and has 3GB of internal storage that has been divided up between file storage (2GB) and applications (1GB). It runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and includes the usual customised screens from Samsung. The phone also features a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, and no front-facing camera.

It also includes “ThinkFree”, an application that lets you edit and view Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF documents on the phone.

The phone will be released in Russia this month before being rolled out globally with the exception of North America. It may not appear on Australian shores either, unless we are in the larger grouping of “Southeast Asia” – which highly likely is not the case.

Gallery and full press release below:

Play and Share Faster and Smarter with the GALAXY Ace Plus

New addition to Android-powered GALAXY portfolio delivers style, power and versatility

SEOUL, Korea – January 3, 2012 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the introduction of the Samsung GALAXY Ace Plus. As an enhanced version of the widely popular GALAXY Ace, the GALAXY Ace Plus is the smartphone for trendy and sociable young professionals. The GALAXY Ace Plus will be available in Russia starting from January 2012, and will be gradually rolled out to Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Africa and China.

“Samsung Mobile is opening 2012 with the introduction of the Samsung GALAXY Ace Plus, which will help enhance the GALAXY brand following the huge success of the GALAXY S, GALAXY SII, GALAXY Ace and GALAXY mini. The GALAXY Ace Plus benefits from the Android™ Gingerbread platform and Samsung services, which provide a better mobile experience for more consumers,” said JK Shin, President of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “In 2012, we will continue to make every effort to create an easy and fun mobile experience by expanding our incredibly popular GALAXY smartphone range, which is now one of the most recognized and successful mobile brands in the world.”

Style and power with expanded features

Building on the previous GALAXY Ace style heritage, the GALAXY Ace Plus is a stylishly designed smartphone contained in a modern and minimalist casing with rounded edges, featuring an affordably-sized 3.65’’ HVGA display. The phone has been designed to be simple yet elegant.

The GALAXY Ace Plus is backed by an impressive 1GHz processor and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps connectivity, providing all the versatility and browsing performance that today’s busy and sociable young professionals need. WiFi 802.11 functionality offers lightning-fast speeds for browsing, downloading and video streaming. Application startups are faster with virtually no lag time, even while multitasking. Additionally, an impressive 2GB of shared storage capacity for multimedia content and up to 1GB of direct storage for applications—more than any smartphone in its category—allow users greater content freedom and usability.

Running on Android Gingerbread and featuring Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, the GALAXY Ace Plus allows users to handle mobile tasks faster and more efficiently. New music playback functionality features a play progress bar and the ability to view music tracks in folders. Call features allow users to reject calls with text messages or add unwanted callers to a black list log. For added productivity, users also have the option of using ThinkFree, a tool that enables viewing and editing of Office documents, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDFs, while on the move.

The GALAXY Ace Plus enables users to stay connected through Samsung’s Social Hub, Music Hub and ChatON services. ChatON, connecting all phone users—across any phone platform—into a single community using phone numbers instead of usernames and passwords, provides an easy instant messaging, group chatting and sharing of content in multiple formats—images, video, voice, contacts, calendar—to make messaging simpler and more intuitive than ever.

We got a question from the Holiday Gift Guide asking when Ice Cream Sandwich will be coming to the Galaxy S II. I answered maybe next year – and turns out I was right. Samsung has now confirmed that it will bring the update to users next year, in addition to users who have the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

Ice Cream Sandwich, also known as Android 4.0, will also be made available to the Galaxy S II LTE version, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, and the Galaxy Tab 8.9, 7.7 and 7.0 Plus range of tablets. The upgrade for the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note will come out in Q1 2012, with the others soon to be announced.

Ice Cream Sandwich unifies the two versions of Android which had been in parallel development – 3.0 for tablets and 2.x for phones. It brings a similar design to Honeycomb, but also more adaptable for mobile screens. It also includes improved multitasking, NFC support and a new feature called “Face Unlock”, where you can unlock it with your face.

The Galaxy Nexus phone is the first phone to support it, and will most likely be the only one to not have a custom interface.

The RAZR name is back, and this time running Android and upgraded hardware to combat rivals Samsung, HTC and Apple. However, with such an iconic name, Motorola has a lot of expectations to fulfilled. Can it deliver, especially in a highly-crowded market? As well, how does its thin form factor affect the phone?

Terence Huynh reviews the Motorola RAZR, which can be found after the jump.

Design & Hardware

Like its predecessor, this Motorola RAZR continues the tradition of a thin yet beautiful design. However, it isn’t a flip phone like the older namesake device – which, incidentally, became a curse as Motorola phones were then compared to the old RAZR. This phone is a standard candybar phone; and the phone has had an upgrade in terms of hardware.

The phone is proudly declaring itself the “World’s thinnest” smartphone out there – only at 7.1mm thick (a slight bulge is present due to the camera). And its undeniably a beautiful design in a somewhat geeky fashion. It also features a KEVLAR fibre back, which is something a phone has never claimed before. However, the size may be a bit too big for people to hold in their hand and could prove to be a bit uncomfortable.

The screen is a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display that is also protected by Gorilla Glass, and does reproduce colours vibrantly.  It also features a 1.2GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory (that can be expandable via a microSD card). It also features two cameras: an 8-megapixel camera that can also support 1080p HD video recording, in addition with a second 1.3-megapxiel front-facing camera. The phone also runs the latest version of Android, version 2.3.5 – also known as Gingerbread.

The new form thinnest, however, means that there is no removable battery, and the SIM card slot is now on the side of the device. The latter is common now on phones these days, so it’s not a big hassle. However, it supports microSIM only, so you’ll have to ask your carrier for one if you want to use this device unlocked (it’s an exclusive to Optus).

Interesting thing to note is that Motorola has also made this phone waterproof. It is apparently coated with a “water repellant”, but I wouldn’t trust it. The ports are not insulated – in fact, they are exposed – so a tiny bit of water could damage it.

Camera

The phone’s camera is alright. It’s not the best compared to its Android rivals, but it is not the worst camera I have ever seen on the phone. The colours are a bit bland and are not as vibrant as what we wanted, and there is a tendency to place your finger over parts of the lens because of its placement on the top of the phone, rather than somewhere in the middle. The camera does not do well in low-light situations and you can see there is a bit of noise in the photos.

Video recording is a bit better, but don’t expect it to replace your camcorder. However, it seems to work better in some lighting conditions than still photography.

The interface for the camera, however, is pretty good. It is clear and pretty clean. As with all Android phones, you have a wide variety of options to play with, including changing the flash and have several modes. However, the phone appears to not have a dedicated camera button on the sides, so you’ll have to use the touchscreen button.

Performance

I have said this before – I hate the Motorola skin for Android. The RAZR, however, does make a huge improvement to make the UI more faster and responsive. While it doesn’t jitter as much any more and is much more responsive to my touch, I do find that it does start to have problems when there are a lot of applications running – including the crapware that comes with the phone.

As well, for some unknown reason, the phone restarted on me three times consecutively. I think it could be the constant inability to connect to the mobile network and the phone trying to update the status messages, but I can’t back that up. However, it was a one-time occurrence and could be from my review unit and maybe not on your unit.

Despite that, the phone does really well most of the time. It has a lot of animations, and the entire UI has been revamped with a brand new design. It also provides some new widgets which makes it easier to perform tasks without going through menu after menu after menu in order to find the actual option you require. One of the best features I love is that you can now access the camera from the lock screen, rather than going through it and then finding the camera app. It makes it easier to take photos at any time. And for many, that delay can ruin photos.

Battery life is pretty good, we’ve had around a day and a bit. We’ve tested with a standard Twitter account and using the browser, and set the notifications on. Again, it really does depend on how you use your phone. If you’re going to be playing games a lot such as Angry Birds and watching movies on YouTube, then you’ll drain the battery faster.

However, if you need to extend your battery life, it has also included a “Smart Actions” application, which allows you to set automated tasks for your phone. This means that, for example, you can turn off your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth when you hit 30% of battery life. While not new, especially when you can download it in the marketplace, the fact it is so easy to use and is pre-installed and ready to be used make this a bit more desirable than the ones in the marketplace.

Conclusion

The Motorola RAZR is a fine-looking phone with the hardware specs that would make you drool over. While it is in a crowded market, it does stand out as one of the highlight phones because of its unique design that rivals the iPhone’s attempts to be slim. The phone’s camera is disappointing at best and the size may be a bit too big, but for those wanting a design-conscious phone like everyone did for the predecessor, then this one should be considered.

After waiting for so long, and getting a little sneak peak in July, we get our hands on the Nokia N9. It has a glorious design and an intuitive way of navigating. However, it is the first (and now, only) phone that will run its MeeGo OS. Does MeeGo fix the problems of Symbian, or will it make Nokia still irrelevant in this age of the Android and iOS platforms? In addition, with a single-core processor, can it outperform the dual-core processors of its rivals?

Terence Huynh reviews the Nokia N9.

Editor’s Note: our First Look video was recorded before this review, in July.

Design & Hardware

You have to give it to Nokia., they know how to design a phone. The polycarbonate unibody is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen, and it does not feel cheap. Slim, lightweight, minimalist and looks beautiful in all of its simplicity. It is probably the reason why Nokia has decided to use this body for their new Lumia 800 phone. The phone is comfortable to hold, and fits perfectly on the palm of your hand. The phone comes in three colours – black, blue, and magenta.

The phone has very few buttons. There are only three: the power/screen-lock button, and the volume rocker; and these are on the side of the phone. It also features some basic essentials, like the headphone jack and the slots to access the microSIM card and microUSB slot, but they are also hidden from plain sight, located at the top of the phone.

The screen is a 3.9-inch Super AMOLED display that is also protected by Gorilla Glass. However, while we have seen screens go larger than 4-inches, this screen is perfect to use for a touchscreen. You can use it with a single thumb, and the screen’s colour reproduction is brilliant. Readability isn’t a problem, especially on a bright sunny day – which lasts like 5 minutes in Melbourne.

It has a 1GHz processor from ARM, the traditional Carl-Zeiss 8-megapixel camera at the rear with 720p HD video recording and a VGA front-facing camera. The phone also includes NFC, but it does not support cashless payment. The NFC chip is to make it easier for people to share or to pair devices via Bluetooth via a tap-and-go system. The phone comes with 16GB and 64GB capacities – though the 64GB is only in black, while the 16GB comes in all three.

MeeGo – is it any good?

I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. MeeGo is one of the better internally-designed OS by Nokia in recent years. While Symbian has a long history of having things buried in menu after menu after menu and a confusing navigation, MeeGo does away with the complexities with a simple user interface. Granted, it may take some use to especially when users from iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 would expect some sort of, well, button to take you back go the menu. The learning curve, however, isn’t that steep and you would get it in a jiffy.

Let’s explain the gestures – just in case you may not get it. You can swipe up and down within the app to go up or down. There are no exit buttons, and the way to close the application is to simply go from the top edge of the screen and swipe down. Switching between applications is also easy when you swipe from the left-edge of the screen to the right-edge. It is not perfect, however. We found it sometimes not recognising the gestures because I put my thumb on the screen while swiping, or just exiting an application by mistake. But it is innovative.

The home screen is split into three screens – the first is simply the apps menu where you see your downloaded apps and core items such as phone calling, contacts and a calendar. Swipe to the right and you see the running applications, and a swipe to the left will let you see your social stream of Facebook and Twitter friends. And of course, Nokia has integrated its own Facebook and Twitter applications onto this phone, and it does work.

Nokia is also appearing to heavily focus more on the social features. In addition to supporting the traditional MMS and SMS, it also lets you communicate via Skype, Facebook, Google Talk and your SIP box if you have that in your company. In addition, the contacts listings will merge all the information of one person – such as Twitter and Facebook – so you have a one-stop shop of trying to access them.

The Web, the Camera and the Multimedia

Camera-wise, the photo quality is decent. We did test it in our recent coverage of Armageddon, because I forgot to recharge my actual camera. However, compared to some of the better cameras available on phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S II and the iPhone 4S, it does pale in comparison. The quality of the photos also are not going to serve as a replacement to a standard point-and-shoot, despite the amount of customisation, which you have to hand it to Nokia as it allows some degrees of control. You can change ISO settings, and do basic photo editing functions. It does suffer when encountering bright conditions and in low-light situations. Video recording quality is also decent.

The phone’s multimedia options are excellent. Easy to use navigation and the interface is pretty sleek. The phone supports a wide-variety of music, including AAC, MP3, WMA and FLAC files – the latter will make audiophiles happy since it’s one of the better file types to encode music. The speakers are alright, though we much prefer to use the headphones to listen to music.

One thing that you can say about MeeGo is that the web experience has definitely improved. Pages load faster and it is responsive to your gestures. Swiping and resizing are smoother than other Symbian phones, but the interface falls a bit short. There is no tabbed browsing, but Nokia has compensated this by allowing you to open a new window, then you’ll have to swipe left or right (from the corner of the screen) to go to the multitasking array then press another window. Yes, it’s a bit complex compared to other web browsers. The browser does hide the back and forward buttons, but only when it is at a new window, or at the very first page or the very last page visited. It does reduce the clutter on the screen, making more easier than before.

Mapping

One of Nokia’s strengths is its mapping tools, and it is no different here. What is different is that you have a map preloaded on the phone. It does not wait to get the map images from Google, unlike Android and iOS. All it sends out is your mobile tower location to find where you are on the map. What is also interesting is that it also shows you the transportation networks – and living in Melbourne, it shows the tram stops, which is pretty important when travelling around the CBD.

Nokia has also a free navigation system installed on the phone, again using preloaded maps, in order to get to your destination. The design is similar to how any other GPS system works and it is optimised for use in the car with large buttons and text.

Performance

The phone is definitely a huge improvement from Nokia’s other Symbian phones. Apps load faster and the system does not overall suffer from lag in the menu system. However, there is still some lag, but that is mainly due to the social stream from the Homepage, where it keeps constantly updating for new Twitter and Facebook status updates. While you can clean it, it would be nice if it would automatically perform this in order to make it a bit quicker.

Battery life isn’t good on this phone, and this could be because of the constant amount of data that is going through this phone. Always-on communication, and social streams are great, but it does drain the battery. I found that I was using half my battery life within a day, and that is just connecting it to my Twitter and Facebook profiles and light web browsing.

Conclusions

The phone is a brilliant phone. But already, we saw at Nokia World the future of Nokia. It isn’t with MeeGo, but with Windows Phone 7. While both are perfectly designed mobile OS platforms, and both have their own flaws, it is a shame to see such a promising OS (MeeGo) killed in the process. But why Nokia is releasing this phone despite the Lumia 800, the Windows Phone 7 version, is coming soon next year? I don’t have an answer for you.

If we disregard the dead-on-arrival situation of this phone, it is one of the better Nokia smartphones for the past five years. The MeeGo OS solves many of the gripes of Symbian, which was one of the big let downs for Nokia’s smartphones, despite the pretty good hardware. With MeeGo, we finally saw a worthy competitor to the Android and iOS smartphones.

The Nokia N9 is available on Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

Motorola has announced that it will be selling the successor to the popular DEFY phone, the Motorola DEFY+, to Australians customers on Telstra. Despite hardware upgrades, it still retains its water-resistant, scratch-resistant and dust-proof body.

The phone features a 1GHz processor, a 3.7-inch touchscreen display with Corning Gorilla Glass, and 2GB of internal memory that is expandable with a microSD card. The phone also has a 5-megapixel rear camera with auto-focus, flash and digital zoom with no front-facing camera. The phone runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread with MOTOBLUR and has support for Adobe Flash Player 10.

The battery life is said to be 7.1 hours of talk time and 16 days in standby mode.

The phone has been certified by Telstra’s BlueTick, meaning that it can be used in rural and regional mobile coverage areas. The predecessor, DEFY, was also given a BlueTick before being revoked by Telstra due to a manufacturing change.

Telstra will be selling the phone on its $49 Freedom Connect Plan with $7 monthly repayment that includes 1GB of data. The repayments reduce slightly until when you reach its $79 Freedom Connect Plan that includes 2GB of data. Prepaid customers will also be able to get the phone outright for $299 with its Cap Encore plans.

Gallery is below.

The Samsung GALAXY Nexus (Image: Samsung/supplied)

I’ve been a user of an Android phone, HTC Desire, for sixteen months. I bought it with a contract and as a way to step into the smartphone world, first as a user and potentially later on as a developer. I love my HTC Desire, but HTC has proven to be a company that thinks about bells and whistles first and foremost, making me consider a change. I was originally thinking about waiting until sequel to Galaxy S2 is released next year, but now have decided to buy the phone Google developed in cooperation with Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus (available for pre-order at Amazon (UK)).

HTC Desire has been a great phone to use and earned many accolades. It proved me that Android is a really good smartphone operating system and a great alternative to Apple’s iPhone. I loved that HTC put design in forefront of their phones, creating a visually attractive user interfaces on top of Android operating system, which seemed to be lacking in visuals ever since its release. But today I am convinced that HTC has lost its way, becoming too focused on visuals and features that do not actually enhance the user experience on the phone. Their 3D-effects galore of their new main screen and audio related enhancements to the phone are more about the fancy list of features than enhancing the usability of the phone the way we use it today.

Now that the new version of Android operating system (4.0, also called the Ice Cream Sandwich) has been released, it has become more apparent than ever before. HTC was initially hesitant about when they plan to upgrade their phones and if it is even possible, due to how much HTC needs to do to make their Sense UI skin work with the new version. While they did change their initial stance about the updates later on, one must wonder if Sense UI is really worth it now that Android looks very good with its native user interface. And there are also signs that HTC wishes to develop its own operating system, which could be interpreted that they want more control which openness of Android does not provide.

But to return to my HTC experience, as a user of HTC Desire, I was disappointed with HTC’s lack of updates and the really long wait before updates arrived on my phone. In fact, the latest update for 2.3.3 Android did not even arrive on the phone through update channels and I had to reinstall the entire device to manually upgrade to 2.3.3. This type of update is not something an average user is easily able to do and it also voids warranty your phone might still have, thus many classic HTC Desire versions are still running a much older version of Android today.

Another issue that I had with HTC was that they had no foresight about the future of mobile handsets. Only a year later my phone was very outdated, being outperformed by dual-core phones and phones that had impressive amounts of internal memory. HTC Desire had very limited internal memory, which meant that I could only ever install around 20 new applications on the phone without internal memory running out. Some applications nowadays require 10MB of internal memory alone, such as Google+ Android App, which is just too much for an average HTC Desire user. The situation became worse with software updates and the only way out seemed to be to ‘root’ the device and install another version of Android without all the bells and whistles and this is again something an average user has a very hard time doing.

Another problem I had was that I also became interested in Android development, learning how to create new applications for the phone. But HTC’s phones are not very developer-friendly, as I lost days trying to figure out how to get proper access to my phone and make it work together with Android Software Developer Kit. HTC Desire was not compatible with Google’s released USB drivers for connecting the device with the computer and required custom drivers.

While newer HTC phones remedy some of those problems by giving twice as much internal memory, or in the case of HTC Desire HD, three times as much internal memory, it really is not enough, especially if software updates of the phone will start occupying that memory as time passes. They also seemed to be hesitant when it comes to upgrading their lineup of phones to the latest Android version, which is not only bad when compared to Apple’s iOS upgrades, but is also bad in comparison to other Android phone manufacturers, like Samsung. I simply do not believe HTC has the foresight to produce phones that will not feel horribly outdated just one year later, no matter how nice they look.

As an alternative I decided to look into Samsung line of phones, especially their S series. Galaxy S2 has been considered by many as 2011 smartphone of the year and with a new version of Android being released recently, there are news inbound that there will be a Galaxy S3 phone early next year. Now that Samsung has taken the market lead in mobile revenue, they have become a reliable phone manufacturer, even if their own TouchWiz custom UI for Android is less favored by users than HTC’s Sense UI.

With the release of new Android version, as has been the case with previous large releases such as Gingerbread last year, Google also released a new phone in cooperation with Samsung. The new device, named Galaxy Nexus, runs on native Android, so it does not have a custom UI skin built on top of the experience. With the enhancements Google has made, it does not look like it needs a custom user interface either, since it is very attractive to begin with, sporting a slick user interface and even a new system-wide font, together with other new features and updated applications. The fact that a well-established and successful phone-manufacturer, Samsung, is behind the hardware and Google brings native experience and updates to the phone before they arrive anywhere else, the choice became simple. I have decided to upgrade to Galaxy Nexus even before my contract runs out on my HTC Desire phone.

For those interested, Galaxy Nexus will be released in Europe on November 17 and can be preordered now.

Before you ask, no I did not consider the new iPhone 4S as an alternative. Android has become the most popular smartphone operating system today and when it comes to developing applications to Android phones, it is also more developer-friendly due to having a large community and a more marketing-friendly terms of use for using Android Market as a release platform.

The following article has been republished with the author’s permission, and all of the text and links remain the same from the original post published with some alterations for localisation and clarifications.

The Nokia Asha 303 aims to bridge the "digital divide" (Image: Nokia/supplied)

Nokia has announced its brand new Asha mobile phone line-up, featuring the Asha 303, 300 and 200/201. The new line of phones are designed to be accessible for all users, attractable and affordable to even the most price conscious person. Nokia is targeting this to the “next billion” of consumers in emerging markets.

The name derives itself from Hindi, meaning “hope”, and forms part of Nokia’s goal in attempting to connect the people to the internet and each other.

Nokia Asha 303

The Asha 303 features a large 2.6-inch capacitive touch screen with a QWERTY keyboard. It also has 100MB internal storage in addition of an extra 32GB of storage via a microSD card. In addition, it has Wi-Fi connectivity and 3G support; and a 3.2-megapixel camera. The phone also runs on Symbian Series 40, so it means that it is not dead yet. The phone is expected to be out in the fourth quarter with a price tag of 115 EUR.

Nokia Asha 300

The Asha 300 features 140MB of internal storage that is expandable up to 32GB, a 2,4-inch display with a resistive touch screen and a numeric keypad; 5 megapixel camera, FM radio and a music player. It also supports Bluetooth 2.1 and also Symbian Series 40. The phone will come out in the fourth quarter with a price tag of 85 EUR.

Nokia Asha 200/201

The Asha 200 and 201 are two brand new smartphones that are designed to connect people to social networking sites while also maintain its price. The two phones will also include 10MB of internal storage and expandable memory of up to 32GB. They are also featuring a 2.4-inch display and Nokia is touting its music features, with a powerful speaker and 52-hour music playback time.

The reason why there are two variations is because the Asha 200 will be a dual SIM phone with Easy Swap functionality, while the Asha 201 is a single SIM phone. Both will be priced at 60 EUR, with the Asha 200 coming out in Q4 2011, and Asha 201 coming out in Q1 of next year.

Nokia has also announced its second Lumia Windows Phone 7 smartphone at its Nokia World event in London, the Lumia 710. The phone features the same specifications as the Lumia 800, however with a slight difference and a bit more colourful.

The phone will let you take off the back cover and change it to five different colours – yellow, black, white, blue and magenta (pink). Again, it features a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen with a 1.4GHz single core processor. However, it has a 5-megapixel camera instead of 8-megapixel camera and 8GB of onboard storage.

It also runs on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango with the same additional extras from Nokia, such as Nokia Drive and Music and Mix Radio.

The phone will be priced at 270 EUR. Unlike the Lumia 800, the 710 is scheduled to launch in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan towards the end of the year alongside their launch with the 800. It will expand in more countries in 2012.

Image gallery is below.

Nokia has announced the new Lumia 800 at its Nokia World event in London today. Featuring the same body as the Nokia N9 but with slight changes, and is the first phone that will be running the Windows Phone 7. In fact, it has gone so far and called it the “first REAL Windows Phone” for Microsoft.

As mentioned, it features the same unibody polycarbonate design that comes in three colours – cyan, magenta and black. It will feature a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with curved bending and a 1.4GHz single-core processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor. It will also feature 16GB of internal storage and an 8-megapixel rear camera with a Carl Zeiss optic lens and LED flash.

The phone has been confirmed to be running on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, and will get some of the new features that will be present on all Windows Phones. However, Nokia has added several additions, including the new Nokia Drive, which is free for all Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices, that will feature turn by turn directions for more than 100 countries and all maps are stored internally, so you’ll only get data for directions not map images.

In addition, it features the new Nokia Music and Mix Radio, which will feature its 14-million track catalogue and 100 mix radio channels with audio preloaded on the go. It will be available in 20 countries, while Mix Radio only in 12 countries. Also announced is a new app called “Sports Hub” in partnership with ESPN to provide a hub for all sporting related.

The phone will be released in six countries: Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Phones are shipping today and will be priced at 420 EUR. The phone will hit a few more countries including Thailand and Singapore before the end of the year.

Australian availability has been confirmed to be next year by Nokia Australia, but when it will be released is up in the air. The phone could be released in January or February because of their close proximity of timing with Singapore.

Full gallery is below.

Nokia 800, or "Sea Ray", is expected to be announced at Nokia World in London this week

Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 phone – the one it is betting its entire future on – could miss the US holiday shopping season. With marketing for the device in that region not starting in 2012, it could indicate that Nokia could be launching in Europe first before the all-important US region.

According to AdAge, the company is looking for an agency to launch its Windows Phone 7 phonse in the US, specifically asking for a “San Francisco-area digital agency” to “dimensionalise” the idea of “Amazing Everyday”. The marketing brief appears to be targeting first smartphone buyers and defectors from iPhone and Android.

The company announced in early 2011 to ditch its own Symbian OS and will use Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. The mix of Nokia’s hardware coupled with a real contender by Microsoft in the mobile smartphone market seems like a good fit.

However, with recent announcements from Samsung and Motorola, both on Android, and the iPhone 4S still the much-hyped phone, despite the web complaints of being not the “iPhone 5″ (and I know Chris Southcott will argue it is the iPhone 5, but branding is everything), Microsoft/Nokia needs to make a splash if it wants to compete against the Samsung-Google alliance and Apple, or Nokia will likely find it even tough to compete in all markets, especially in the growing region of China, where the iPhone is almost treated like the “God device”.

Nokia is expected to announce their first Windows Phone 7 phone at Nokia World in London.

Four days before the Nokia World event, a teaser ad for the upcoming Nokia 800 (Sea Ray) has aired on UK Television; only showing glimpses of the smartphone from different angles for no more than one second.

The ads aired during the UK’s version of The X-Factor, meaning that it could be trying to hype up the phone before its announcement on October 26, where it is expected to announce its plans for Windows Phone 7 before the holiday shopping season and in 2012.

The Nokia 800, codename Sea Ray, was announced to a crowd of developers by CEO Stephen Elop, and video was leaked of that meeting by a Hungary technology blog. Rumoured specifications include Gorilla Glass screen and appears to have the same polymer body as the MeeGo-running Nokia N9.

The video is below, courtesy of The Next Web:

Android is getting some more love today with the official announcement in Hong Kong of the much expected Samsung GALAXY Nexus. Running on the upcoming Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the phone is the flagship developer phone and it isn’t sparse on the features.

The GALAXY Nexus features a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, with a very big 4.65-inch Super AMOLED display with 720p resolution. It also features a 5-megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, LED flash and “zero” shutter lag, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. It will come in 16GB and 32GB capacity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpLjvrKtOT4

The body is, like expected, a curved shape, and features no buttons at the front. It also includes standard features like an accelerometer, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The phone will also feature a NFC chip to power its Android Beam feature, allowing you to simply tap two NFC-enabled Android phones close to each other (similar to the Nokia N9) to share data easily such as contacts, websites and cat videos from YouTube.

It is Google’s flagship phone for Ice Cream Sandwich, and as such it features the core OS only. As such, it includes new features such as the aforementioned Android Beam, and the new Face Unlock feature that act as lock screen and requires a picture of your face to enter – though, the demo at the conference failed, miserably.

Like the Motorola RAZR announced earlier, the phone also comes in an LTE version, which will be released depending on the region.

The phone is coming in November in US, Europe and Asia. More precise availability, like when is it coming to Australia and who, are expected to come in the next few weeks. You can find more information on Google’s own microsite, where you can register your interest.

The RAZR is reborn. One of its most successful smartphones ever, Motorola is bringing the name back but with some major hardware upgrades and running Andiron 2.3.5 Gingerbread while retaining its ever slim and lightweight design.

The new phone features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display protected with Gorilla Glass and a 1.2GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM. The phone also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that can record in 1080p, and a 1.3-megapixel camera at the front.  All of this is wrapped in a body that is only 7.1mm thin and is made out of KEVLAR fibre.

Screenshots also indicate changes on MotoBLUR, so we really can’t wait to get our hands to review it. The phone also features a MotoCast app, allowing you to stream or download content from your PC to your device without hooking it up to a computer; and “Smart Actions” that lets you automate everyday tasks and enable better battery life.

The phone also comes with standard Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi connectivity.

The RAZR will also feature 4G, however that appears to be a Verizon exclusive. Everyone else, including us in Australia, will be running on standard 3G.

The RAZR comes to Australia in November on Optus as an exclusive. The phone will be available for $0 upfront on its $59 Cap plan, and the added Work, Play and Drive Kit – which lets you have GPS directions, edit documents and browse the web with a full Firefox browser – will be on its $79 Cap plan with $0 upfront.

We knew this was coming. In retaliation of the news that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet would be banned until the case was settled, Samsung has filed a preliminary injunction in the Federal Court that seeks to ban the sale of the iPhone 4S, claiming that Apple infringes on three of its patents relating to mobile technologies.

“Apple has continued to violate our patent rights and free ride on our technology. We will no longer stand idly by and will steadfastly protect our intellectual property,” the company said in a statement posted on their blog.

The company has also filed an appeal seeking to overturn the injunction granted by Apple just last week; and filed a similar suit in Japan over two patents – including over UI customisation and the UI indicator for “in flight mode”.

The full claims for Australia, according to Samsung, are:

Patent Claims in Australia:

1)  Method and apparatus for transmitting/receiving packet data using pre-defined length indicator in a mobile communication system (WCDMA)

2)  Method and apparatus for data transmission in a mobile telecommunication system supporting enhanced uplink service (HSPA)

3)  Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving data with high reliability in a mobile communication system supporting packet data transmission (HSPA)

We have asked for a response from Apple, but they did not respond in time of publication.

While Nokia is saying bon voyage to Symbian and MeeGo, it appears that there could be two Windows Phone 7 phones that could come out at the same time. We know about Nokia’s Sea Ray phone (which looks like the Nokia N9), but a leak has revealed the name of the other – the Nokia Sabre.

The leak, spotted by WPCentral, came from Microsoft Canada in their competition page in celebration of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, detailing what you have won:

The type of Windows Phone 7.5 will vary and will be selected at Microsoft’s choosing (examples include Samsung Yukon, Samsung Wembley, NOKIA Searay and NOKIA Sabre)

You can also see a full image of it here.

Speculation is saying that it will have a 3.7-inch display and support microSIM cards. We also know that it is estimated retail price is $600, per the confirmation in the terms. In addition to the leak, Microsoft has also confirmed the existence of two Samsung phones – the Yukon and Wembley, both also unknown to the tech industry until now.

However, if Nokia is to launch two phones with WP7, it could mean that Nokia is pushing Windows Phone 7, and hard. It needs to make up ground, as rivals Apple, Samsung and HTC – the latter two makers of Windows Phone 7 phones in addition to Android – are eating their market share.

Also, I should point out that Nokia World is coming in October, so maybe we could find out more details when it approaches.

Image: Nexus404