Phones get fashion as Armani and Levi Strauss go mobile... or do you fancy an EUR18k Ferrari phone?
It's the weekly Pocket Picks round-up
We kicked off last week's round-up from our sister website Pocket Picks with a headline suggesting there might be better ways to spend that £269 you've put aside for an iPhone. (Of course, don't even think about trying to buy one and unlock it – Apple's latest firmware release firmly knocks that idea on the head.) But £269 wouldn't even get you a go on the latest handsets from Nokia's London-based high-end label Vertu or Russian outfitter Gresso.
Made to commemorate Ferrari's 60th anniversary, Vertu has only manufactured 60 of its Ascent Ferrari phones. Small wonder. Each will set you back €18,000. Gresso, on the other hand, has announced two versions of a smartphone that is handmade using a finish of 200-year-old African Blackwood and fastened with solid gold screws.
Still, back in the real world, the flow of new devices for normal people continues unabated. Clothing company Levi Strauss is getting in on the act with an announcement it will start to sell branded phones designed by the French studio, ModeLabs, through The Carphone Warehouse. Also relying on the fashion angle is Samsung. It's rebranded its neat-looking touchscreen SGH-P520 as the first release in its collaboration with Armani.
Less impressive-looking but certainly functional is Samsung's i550 GPS, which offers GPS, 3G, 2.5G, quad-band, a 3.2MP camera with autofocus and flash, plus FM radio, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 and a full HTML web browser, all running on Symbian. If only Samsung still had Jose to model it, eh? Or how about the latest Walkman phone from Sony Ericsson? Expected to be unveiled as the W890, the compact-looking metal phone will have a 3.2MP camera.
T-Mobile's also continuing to bring out its own branded devices, especially in the messaging sector. The MDA Vario III (made by HTC), has a touchscreen and slide-out keyboard, as well as GPS, HSDPA 3.6Mbit web surfing, Wi-Fi and a 3MP camera. Meanwhile, the operator's US operation has announced two new Sidekicks. The Sidekick Slide boasts a hi-res 320x240 pixel screen and software options supporting IM, and POP3 and IMAP email. The more expensive Sidekick LX has a swivel 400x240 pixel screen and similar messaging support.
We were less sure about Palm's Centro device, though. It's small, with a 320x320 pixel touchscreen, but the QWERTY keyboard looks really tiny.
Heading in the other direction when it comes to size is the INFOBAR 2 from Japanese operator au KDDI. It's almost 14cm long – apparently it was a concept phone that made it through to full production.
An idea that should have been properly countered prior to birth, however, is Nokia's combined sweatband/sports pouch for your mobile phone. Frankly we had to check it wasn't April 1st, but hey, that's Nokia.
And speaking of oddities, another one we imagine had much more to do with gaining PR inches than the sweatband came from US company YouNeverCall. It announced it would award a $10k prize for first mobile call received at its Los Angeles headquarters to be made from the surface of the moon.
Wonder who'd cover the roaming charges on that?
