Android fans already have a lot to look forward to next year. Not only will the new Android 2.1 OS be officially out, but it will be seeing a lot of use. DROID Just got upgraded to 2.0.1 and Google seems to be cranking out updates like there’s no tomorrow.

On the mobile phone side, 2010 will see the launch of the Sony Ericsson X10 and the HTC Espresso (the Hero successor); not to mention Google’s own announcement that they too will be unleashing their own Android mobile phone featuring a version of the OS that no one has seen before.

And just when we thought that we already know what we should be expecting for next year, a recent leak of HTC’s upcoming devices more than doubled the number of upcoming Android phones. The leak was of a brochure that HTC would be presenting T-Mobile (which is why the images had “T-Mobile NATCO day” written on it); so far we have not confirmed if T-Mobile will be the first carrier that HTC has approached.

Anyway, the leak also showcased 3 business model WinMo 6.5 devices, but interest in the old 6.5 version is currently running low, even with the announcement of a capacitive touch screen version of the platform, everyone just wants to know more about the Androids.

Back to the Android devices, the five mobile phones are named Bravo, Legend, Salsa, Tide and Buzz. Most impressive of the group is the Bravo. This phone surpasses most smart phone in terms of overall hardware. The processor is the much acclaimed Snapdragon 1 GHz; the screen is an HD-capable 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen, the built in 5 mega pixel snapper is capable of recording videos at 720p.

The other Android phones are also amazing, featuring integrated apps for Facebook, Twitter, and other networking sites, 600MHz and 528MHz processors, and capacitive touch screens of varying sizes.

The new Motorola DROID QWERTY slider touchscreen smartphone is the world’s first Android handset running the latest 2.0 version of the open-source Google platform.  The new handset is the product of three players that have put their best foot forward, so to speak.  You have Motorola who made the hardware.  You have Google who supplied the Android OS and other software products, Motorola is said to have not bothered putting its 2-cents worth on the software. Then you have Verizon who actually owns the Droid name as it plans to out Verizon-exclusive handsets under the Droid brand. That basically puts Motorola as an OEM.

Features

In Europe, the Motorola DROID will be the Motorola Milestone and will feature pretty much the same hardware and software features. Except for having CDMA which Europe doesn’t need.

For starters, the handset is your basic GSM and 3G/ UMTS supporting HSPA data connectivity for broadband online surfing with WiFi 802.11b/g as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR for wireless data connectivity. It is arguably the world’s thinnest full QWERTY slider touchscreen smartphone at only 13.7mm. With Google firmly behind it, you get Google Maps navigation unique to the Android and is as good as any GPS system with spoken turn-by-turn guidance provided free of charge.

It’s got a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and zoom as well as DVD-quality video recording.  Its multimedia features ends with a brilliant 3.7” capacitive touchscreen display with wide-VGA resolution and auto-rotate accelerometer. Memory is modest but you get microSD expansion support for up to 32GB.  Its sale package comes with 16GB microSD card.

Verdict

Motorola is keeping its fingers crossed that its Droid will be the phone to humble the iPhone 3Gs. With a flawless telephony features on an equally flawless Verizon network, the Motorola DROID can be expected to be communicator first and a versatile entertainment handset second.  The iPhone has that in reverse.  Expect this to hit the European markets by end of November under the Milestone name.

GSM Association finally announces the winners for the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix – Americas Tournament this year. The American domain of this competition was put in order with the help of Rutburg & Company while the tournament was exhibited at the Future Mobile event 2009 arranged in ‘America’s Finest City’, San Francisco.

GSM has announced that senior executives from more than 200 companies having key responsibilities in their respective organizations including investment analysis, research and development and looking after strategic associations were requested to attend this year’s event. GSM announced WellDoc and Ubidyne as the joint winners in this year’s Americas Tournament, the former hailing from USA and the later belonging to Germany.

In Mobile Innovation Grand Prix for this year, GSMA had encouraged companies from around the world to present innovative products, and latest service applications to the world market. After scrutinizing the entries, a respected judges panel constituting higher level executives hailing from mobile operators and respected companies from different countries of the world, selected WellDoc and Ubidyne as joint winners from a list of ten finalists. This year’s winners are scheduled to compete for the prestigious title of Mobile Innovative Grand Prix in Barcelona next year at the Mobile World Congress.

In his closing remarks one of the judges said that the decision to choose the winners was very hard and that both WellDoc and Ubidyne offered solutions which had exciting future prospects for the mobile industry. Ubidyne offered innovative solutions for advancements in network infrastructure by offering the technology designed for next generation mobile devices. On the other hand the USA-based WellDoc provided solutions taking care of next generation self-health supervision.

In GSMA’s announcements, it was mentioned that Generalitat de Catalunya as the primary sponsor of the grand event this year, while the association existing in 219 nations plans to expand the industry by giving rise to new prospects for members and continuing to encourage ground-breaking ideas by organizing such mega events.

Promising the pinnacle of messaging and social networking integration, the Vodafone 360 internet-based mobile telephone service works hand-in-glove with the upscale features of the Samsung H1 handset to bring seamless people-centric functionality into the smartphone as well as your PC or MAC workstations.  Samsung made the handset exclusive to Vodafone and now get rebadged as the Vodafone 360 H1that was launched in the UK together with the new 360 service replacing the Vodafone Live.  The service now has 10 smartphones to choose from.

Availability

Vodafone’s Samsung H1 handset can be had free with a 24-month contract starting on a ₤35/month plan.  It can now be pre-ordered from Vodafone’s online site where you have a choice of either black or silver body color.  While Vodafone isn’t exactly the best carrier out there, it may be a good idea to give its new 360 service a try this Christmas, if only for its marvelous H1 smartphone exclusive to the serve.

Bang for the Buck Features at a Glance

What’s so marvelous about the Vodafone 360 H1?  For a start, it’s 3G with HSDPA/HSUPA so you can truly max out the Vodafone 360 social networking experience over the internet. It has WiFi, Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS, FM radio, 3.5mm headphone hack and 16GB of internal memory that has microSD expandability as well.  A couple of stand-outs include its gorgeous 3.5” AMLOED touchscreen with wide VGA resolution and 16 million colors.  Then there’s a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash.

The Vodafone 360 H1 runs on the nearly forgotten LiMo OS (Linux Mobile) that got serious following in the Motorola RAZR and ROKR models.  Eclipsed by the equally open-sourced Android, the LiMo Release 2 gets resurrected in the Vodafone 360 H1 with a slew of apps that has the right features to integrate your phonebook contacts with online VOIP, Windows Live Messenger and Facebook sites.  It’s integrated with the default Opera browser as well as WebKit widgets.  All that for free on the Vodafone 360 contract.

Christmas is just around the corner and will come and go soon enough, making way for a new year of broken resolutions and bad weather. But despite the bleak winter months ahead 2010 promises to be a good year for mobile phones with some truly jaw-dropping handsets set for release in the first few months alone. Two of the most hotly anticipated phones set for release in early 2010 are the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and the Nokia N900.

The Nokia N900 will see a move away from Symbian by Nokia, and some have heralded it as the dawn of a new era as the Finnish company moves to a far superior and advanced OS: Maemo. Unfortunately Nokia has revealed that the N900 will be the only Maemo phone that they will release next year and that Symbian is very much still part of their business plan. While some have taken this as bad news, it actually makes the N900 all the more special.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 on the other hand, will make use of the highly popular and already well established Android and will be the first phone to combine this with the speed and power of a 1GHz Snapdragon. With Android 2.0 Eclair available it is a shame that Sony Ericsson has opted for the older 1.6 Donut edition. Despite this, Sony Ericsson has worked wonders with the X10 through the use of their own Nexus interface that takes the whole Android experience up a level. Combined into this interface are Sony Ericsson’s new Mediascape and Timescape features. Timescape combines information from a wide range of sources such as messages, emails and social networking sites to provide a more intuitive interaction with your phone contacts, rather than having these services disjointed and unorganised.

While there is a trend towards this sort of functionality among many phone manufacturers today, Mediascape will offer something new by attempting the same sort of thing with multimedia. Combining music and video from a range of sources such as PlayNow and YouTube, Mediascape should promise to revolutionise mobile phone entertainment.

As for Maemo; the Linux-based OS is raising eyebrows due to its groundbreaking web-oriented design. Phones making use of Maemo, which for the time being will unfortunately only be the N900, should completely change the way in which people access online content on their phones. With multi-tasking screens and a novel new browser the N900 is certainly one for the web surfers.

For anyone holding out for buying a new touchscreen phone in the New Year the choice is a tough one, but certainly falls between these two phones. While the N900 will offer exceptional web browsing the Xperia X10 will offer a better all round experience and that’s probably the deciding factor, for me at least.

Samsung announces that in 2010 two new phones will hit the market designed especially for female users. The Samsung Diva (S7070) and the Diva Folder (S5150) are both fashionably designed phones specifically with woman in mind. They are for women who look for a highly fashionable and luxurious lifestyle.

They are elegantly designed with a quilted back cover that has a haute couture look to it. As these phones hit the market not only are the designed for elegance but even the features had woman in mind. They include a ‘Beauty Effect’ and a ‘Lomo Effect’.

Every woman deserves to have her inner diva let loose and this phone will help do just that. Modern woman play a huge role in the world around us. These phones are definitely attention getting phones. Samsung spokesman are quoted as saying “the diva collection is a long term goal to help meet the needs of woman who happen to be an important target demographic”.

The Samsung Diva has a pearly white quilted backing with a diamond shaped button on the front. It also boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera, pop up SNS for use with notifications from Facebook and Myspace. It also has multi instant messengers

The Diva folder comes with a hidden LED screen, the back cover is silver toned. The camera has a ‘Beauty shot’ and ‘Lomo shot’ effects. Both phones come with security features like ‘Fake Call’ and ‘SOS Message’.

The initial launch of these new Diva phones is set for January of 2010 and will be launching primarily in European countries to start with and Asia shortly after that.

With Christmas just a couple of weeks away time is quickly running out to get all your shopping done. Personally I leave it until Christmas Eve, but so it seems does almost everyone else, as the shops are always bursting with frantic customers desperately fighting over the last Power Ranger (or whatever) toy for their kid. This is where ordering online can be a good idea but this still raises the problem of items not arriving on time so if that is your avenue then it’s a good idea to get ordering early to be sure that everything is ready in time to be placed under the tree.

Anyway, for anyone thinking of getting someone a new phone this Christmas I have decided to try and help by giving a rundown on some of the best touchscreen phones on the market at the moment. Some of these are newly released but some have been around for a while, but either way they are all virtually guaranteed to put a smile on someone’s face this Christmas.

HTC HD2

Following on from the success of the highly popular HTC Hero, Taiwanese phone maker HTC has gone one better with their latest phone the HD2. While at one point in the not too distant past the little island of Formosa had a reputation for producing shoddy merchandise, the likes of the HTC HD2 should certainly put those accusations to rest. This Windows Mobile handset boasts a staggering 4.3″ high quality touchscreen and superfast 1GHz Snapdragon processor that sets it apart from its heroic predecessor as one of the fastest and cinematic touchscreen phones on the market today.

Nokia N97 Mini

Earlier this year saw the release of the N97 from Nokia, and then some months later the Finnish company decided, for some reason, to produce a slightly smaller version: the N97 Mini. Whatever their exact reasoning was we are most certainly grateful. If you have considered buying the N97 then the N97 Mini is well worth your consideration, with all the same appeal and functionality but with a much more ergonomic feel to it. The QWERTY keypad of the N97 Mini is ideal for whacking out long messages or emails and makes this an ideal touchscreen for the more professionally oriented phone owner.

Sony Ericsson Satio

For all the photography enthusiasts out there the phone of choice has to be the Satio from Sony Ericsson. This phone boasts an impressive 12 megapixel camera with a wealth of features including geo-tagging, smile detection, touch focus and the highest quality xenon flash. Although this is its main selling point there is more to the Satio than its camera however, with a wealth of other entertainment features and a very pristine 3.5″ TFT display.

LG BL40 Chocolate

There are two new Chocolate phones from LG making their way onto the shelves this season, but the one that stands out this Christmas is the BL40 for its unique entertainment features. This handset is for the movie lovers and all those phone owners who love watching videos on their phones, as the BL40 is the only handset to boast a 21:9 widescreen screen resolution. This means that all those widescreen films you have amassed over the last few years will now be displayed in all their glory on your very own phone. No more black bars and eye squinting for owners of the BL40. While having one of the highest quality displays to be found on a phone today the Chocolate does not fall short in other areas either, with high speed HSDPA connectivity and a very nice 5 megapixel camera into the bargain.

Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB

Although the original iPhone was released a few years ago now, the Apple handset is still one of the most popular touchscreen phones doing the rounds. New iterations have seen an improvement on the original however, with the latest version having much more memory and a far speedier interface. All this while still retaining all the features that have made the Apple phone so popular, including the exceptional media player, first class web browsing experience and of course that famous app store that has a downloadable application for just about every endeavour you could wish to perform on your phone, and lots of useless (but quite amusing) ones also.

LG GD510 POP

Falling into the more affordable range of touchscreens the LG Pop follows in the footsteps of the highly successful LG Cookie and Samsung Tocco Lite. These phones were designed to bring the touchscreen craze to a wider audience by placing the technological revolution into more affordable handsets, but neither company were quite prepared for just how popular they would become. These two phones have been some of the best selling handsets for their respective manufacturers and two of the most popular phones released in the last few years. The LG Pop follows on where the Cookie left off, providing all of the fun of a touch screen phone without any of the extra baggage that makes them cost the earth.

So here are some ideas for you to consider if you were thinking of purchasing a certain someone a new phone for xmas. There are many other great phones being released at this time and in the coming year, but there are too many to mention them all by name. For now however, these should provide some ideas for presents if you are struggling to think what to get for little cousin Timmy, or even if you just felt like treating yourself this festive season.

As the Korean mobile manufacturer Samsung tries to lead the mobile industry with high end phones, it still maintains its feet to the ground with the release of this new mobile phone most users should give a try. The mobile market is now featuring a typical mobile phone with a touch of class and functionality.

Affordable and Not So Average

Samsung S5560 is available in various Orange contracts that would fit any person’s budget. The mobile phone would be available in locked in contracts and as a retail handset too which on the estimate should have a tag of less than €300 only. But what is more important than its surprisingly low price are the features that come with it.

Packed with a high quality 5 megapixel auto focus camera, users will surely enjoy taking photos wherever they are. It even comes with a smile and blink detector and a very useful LED flash. Other mobile phones that come close to this one only brag of 3 megapixel integrated cameras so this makes the Samsung S5560 a better choice. Not only that, it has a 3 inch wide TFT WQVGA display for users to experience full touch pleasure. It is equipped with a TouchWiz user interface that makes mobile phone navigation a breeze. And to maximize the viewing experience of users, it has an accelerometer that automatically rotates the screen and gives motion sensitive navigation.

Connect with Contacts Easier

The Samsung S5560 also offers various connectivity options that users will surely appreciate. Connectivity tools of the mobile phone are Quad Band GSM/EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0 and WAP 2.0. Though 3G seems to be missing, it is actually compensated by Wi-Fi for this connection is free in most spots. Aside from that, it gives the users fast access to the internet especially when downloading files or just browsing the web. More than that, sending and receiving emails is made possible with IMAP/POP/SMTP connection tools. Overall, this touch phone is a really good find.

Be on the lookout this December for Susan and Sunny. Who are Susan and Sunny? More appropriately what are Susan and Sunny? They are brand new phones brought to you by Sony Ericsson. The official names of the phones are J10 and J20. One of the special things about these phones is that they are from the GreenHeart series. This simply means that they are 50% recycled plastic. Both of these phones are waterproof as well.

Sunny is a classic slider phone while Susan is a stick type phone. Both of these new phones feature a QVGA screen as well as a 5.0 megapixel camera and a GPS. These models were recently leaked onto the internet showing little of the specs but none the less the word is out and many people do not seem to like the design or the name the phones come with. Only time will tell for sure just how good these phones really are, will the voice of the people rise and put a crashing halt to these new phones?

The platform of these phones is not your common garden variety A2 platform; it is something new and unique. Many people are calling it an A200 platform. Susan comes with a new “Home Key” rather than just your standard activity-menu screen. If you get the chance to check out the screen you will see all new icons at the top of the window and three new soft keys at the base of the window. Be aware however that Susan and Sunny are just codenames for the phones they are not the official names.

Whatever the case may be with the J10 and J20, we will simply have to wait until the release in December and see for ourselves.

Susan Demo

Sunny Demo

Italian fashion house Armani has once again collaborated with South Korean mobile phone giant Samsung with the release of what could be the world’s most powerful and largest fashion smartphone – the Samsung B7620 Giorgio Armani. One look at its humongous body typical of many QWERTY slider touchscreen smartphones out there, this is not for the faint at heart and wallet.

It shatters every conceivable notion of how a fashion should be.  With a hefty body weighing all of 164 grams and a bulkiness reserved only for large hands, the new Samsung Armani just might get away as a new fashion genre that Samsung hopes will appeal to the older, more mature and certainly richer market segment with the same flair for fashion as the young crowd but with more finesse.

Brainy and Bold

Like its B7610 Omnia Pro twin dressed in a more ostentatious Gold or Bronze body, the third Samsung-Armani collaboration runs on the Windows Mobile 6.5 to give it desktop multitasking capability as functional familiarity for corporate users. It has all the required readers so you view and edit MS Office files, a full internet browser with the latest Opera and push email that businessmen just love on their Blackberry phones.

But it gets better than the Omnia Pro with a tilting display halve when fully slid out for a more ergonomically comfortable typing and viewing on its gorgeous 3.5” Wide VGA AMOLED touchscreen. It also ups the Omnia Pro’s 1GB to 8GB of internal memory expandable to 32 GB from its microSD slot as well as high resolution 5 megapixel autofocusing camera.

As a quad band GSM and tri band WCDMA in 3G, it has HSDPA/HSUPA, WiFi 802.11 b/g, A-GPS and Bluetooth 2.0 data connectivity features. There’s a more generous 8 GB of internal memory and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera where the Omnia only has 1 Gb and a 3 megapixel camera.

Availability

The Samsung B7620 Giorgio Armani is expected to hit most European and Middle East countries during the last quarter of the year in time for the holidays. As an upscale smartphone carrying the Giorgio Armani mark and aura, it’s SIM-free price of about €700 or equivalent isn’t for everyone. But so is an Armani suit.