Mobile Digest

At last - Nokia's clamshell phone

It is a big week for Nokia with a huge bash in Nice, France to parade new handsets, and apparently a new operating system. Reuters managed to get the info on the handsets first, while you can read more about the operating system on The Register.

The phone that catches our eye though is Nokia’s first clamshell for the European market – the 7200. It is an amazing-looking handset finished in a kind of weird beige textile. Even though it hasn’t yet been formally announced it has already been given the moniker the Louis Vuitton of phones. Looks like a real winner though it doesn’t appear to have a an integrated camera. The picture was featured on a Swiss website.

Of the other phones, the 6230 is a camera phone, while the 6820 features a keyboard and is rumoured to be the successor to Nokia's Communicator range of handsets.

All three won’t go on sale until early next year.

We’ll have full details of the handsets after they are formally announced on Tuesday morning.

FIFA2004 for mobiles

Proof, if it were ever needed, that phone gaming is emerging as a potentially lucrative area for companies comes with the news that for the first time ever a company will release a Java version of a game for mobiles simultaneously with console and PC editions.

Electronic Arts is debuting its FIFA 2004 footy game with the Java title, co-published by Digital Bridges, offering a cut-down version of the game with 16 international teams and real players.

The game will be available from late October/early November from mobile network operators Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange; from Sky's YourMobile interactive TV channel and from a number of mobile entertainment web portals including Tx1.com and Telemob.com.

More 3G handsets from Three

Earlier this week we had a chat with several members of the Three team who are responsible for handsets. They put us straight on a couple of issues.

Although the company hasn’t made any official announcements they were able to confirm the forthcoming arrival of a few new handsets. They also told us what their technical team have been playing with in the labs.

Read on for an update

Definitely coming to Three

Motorola A835 – Should be in the stores by the time you read this. Look out for an upcoming review.

NEC 616 – This clamshell model is definitely coming in the next month or so.

Motorola A925 – The next step on from the A920 is slightly smaller than its predecessor and has a few extra features. There’s no confirmation from Three, but Motorola execs insist it will be in the stores by Xmas.

Might be coming to Three

LG U8100 – The Korean company insists a version of this phone will launch in the UK in the Spring. Three hasn’t confirmed this though.

Not coming to Three

Siemens U15 – This handset maker claims this slightly different take on the Motorola A835 is coming to the UK In November. Not so says Three.

Sony Ericsson Z1010 – It seems as if Three might pass on this phone and wait or the company’s next gen 3G handset.

Nokia 7660 – Cool-looking handset, but no video calling facilities means it is unlikely to wear a Three badge.

btw if you have a spare minute or two drop in here. It's an online petition calling on Three to offer proper e-mail access and the Internet on the Motorola A920 and its other phones. Nice work whoever is behind it.

Then again maybe this is the Sharp GX30

Sharp has now announced the GX30 click here or here for more details

So the hunt for the Sharp GX30, the fourth in Sharp/Vodafone’s hugely successful series of clamshell camera phones, continues.

It seems our report from IFA (click here) has sparked something of a debate over at Mobile Review and Howard Forums.

Among the theories being expounded there is that GX30 will be Voda’s first 3G phone – which seems rather unlikely to us.

More plausible is that it could well be the V401SH Japanese camera phone pictured above and that it will launch in Europe in February.

It has all the key spec we’d expect from the GX30 (mega pixel camera, 320x240 pixel display, powerful zoom, SD memory card for storing images etc) in a form factor that is smaller and lighter than the GX20.

We certainly wouldn't rule it out. Anoraks read on to get the full spec.

V401SH Specs

Size (Width x Height x Thickness) Approx. 48 x 95 x 23mm (when folded)
Weight Approx. 102g
Continuous talk time/standby time Approx. 150 min./approx. 450 hours (when folded)
Main 2.2-inch (320 x 240 pixels) System LCD (maximum 260,000
colours) Display
Sub 1.1-inch (96 x 64 pixels) GF colour LCD (65,536 colours)
Pixels/type 1 million effective pixels/CCD
Zoom 7x (20 steps) Mobile camera
Max. photo size 858 x 1144 pixels
Maximum no. of displayable characters
(full size)
50 characters (10 characters by 5 lines)
100 characters (10 characters by 10 lines)
400 characters (20 characters by 20 lines)
Maximum mail capacity (received/sent) 1,500/480 mails
Maximum still photo capacity (no. of
photos) 8MB, shared (maximum 1600 photos)
Ring tone voices 40 (6KB)
Java™ support Available (50KB applications)
Bilingual interface Available
Handset colours Rose Red, Milky White, Lemon Yellow, Lilac Blue
Retail Price (standard set): open price
The standard set consists of the mobile handset, a battery pack, rapid charger and desktop cradle.

Orange SPV takes three

We've mentioned it a couple of times before, but thought you might want to see a decent picture of it. We are referring to the third version of Orange's SPV smartphone the SPV E-200.

In terms of styling and functionality it is pretty similiar to the last version of the handset. There are however two enormous differences which in our book propels it into the smartphone Premiership.

They are:

Integrated camera - No more messing around with snap on snappers. We don't know if Orange has also simplified the way in which the phone sends photo messages. We certainly hope so as on previous SPVs it took about a dozen clicks. The camera is a VGA model - the same as most of its rivals.

Bluetooth - Essential for us road warriors who like the option of doanloading e-mail to our laptop.

Other features include:

POP3 e-mail via a version of Outlook
Web access through Internet Explorer
Windows Media player - plays MP3s as well as WMAs and can access Orange's fledgling video service
Outlook - Syncs with your PC for contacts/appointments
Orange Back up for storing all your details on the network

No news on price yet. The phone is on sale in November. Click here for Orange's website

Phones that come in pink

Ok, so it might be a deadringer for a ladies compact, or nose powderer as we call them round here, but it is in fact one of four new fashion phones unveiled by Siemens.

The quartet, numbers five to eight, are all part of the company’s hard to pronounce Xelibri designer range. They’ll be on sale in suitably swanky outlets, like House of Fraser and Selfridges, next month.

Siemens has also ramped up the specifications too, so as well those designs to die for they all now sport colour screens. Number eight, our 2nd favourite after number six featured here, is voice controlled and also features an FM radio.

If past form is anything to go by expect to pay betwen £150-250 for each model.

For a look at the other models read on or check out Siemens' Xelibri website

Arsenal mobile - works in Europe too

David Beckham isn’t the only world-class footballer pushing a mobile phone. Samsung and O2 have gone one better and nabbed arguably the best central midfielder in the world. Yes, Arsenal's Patrick Vieira has laid his cards on the table and admitted he’s a Samsung V200 user with an O2 contract.

Of course this might have something to do with the fact that O2 sponsor the Gunners and that Samsung is the club’s chosen telecoms partner. The fact that the pair have just launched a special edition version of the V200 for Arsenal fans might also help explain some of his enthusiasm for the mobi.

Still, the Arsenal phone, which goes on sale only via a pay-as-you-go tariff for £300, includes some Gunners wallpaper, an animated Arsenal welcome and a collection of ringtones loved by the Highbury Library faithful including Volare, Patrick Vieira's very own tune. Here’s hoping the phone travels better in Europe than the team.

Orange Bluetooth car only in black

With a ban on using a mobile phone handset while driving set to come into force on December 1, Orange has teamed up with car manufacturer Smart to produce a motor for the safety-conscious driver who wants to talk and turn at the same time.

The Orange Smart City-Coupe is the first car to in the UK to feature Bluetooth technology as standard so the driver can make and take calls without taking their hands off the wheel. Bluetooth is activated by pressing a button on the rear view mirror. Drivers can dial by speaking the name of the person they want to call and the conversation is broadcast through the car speakers. The new technology also enables the phone to link up wirelessly to a laptop or PDA.

Available in any colour you want from mid-October - as long as it's black - the Smart City-Coupe is expected to retail for £8995. Customers receive a Sony Ericsson T610, a six month subscription to Orange and a Bluetooth kit as part of the package.

However Smart doesn't have any plans to roll out the technology across the whole of its range and so far only 100 of the special edition cars have been built.

Siemens adds 3G

Siemens has become the latest manufacturer to promise a 3G handset for the UK. Its new phone, the U15, will launch in the UK in November via the Three network in November.

Strangely the model is not quite as new as it might seem. It is in fact a version of the Motorola A835 that is due to launch imminently via the Three network. There are a few differences. The Siemens livery is all silver, where as the Motorola’s is black and silver. The interfaces look slightly different and the line up of buttons on the phone isn’t identical.

Overall the U15/A835 looks like a promising handset. It has many of the features of Three’s flagship phone the Motorola A920, but is notably smaller. Alongside Three’s highlight feature video calling the handsets boasts MP3 and video playback, GPS, Internet and e-mail facilities and Java.

The phone runs on a Motorola operating system unlike the A920 which uses the established Symbian system. It comes with a 64MB Secure Digital card for storage of music, images and video. However this card is integrated into the handset and cannot be replaced by a high capacity card.

Annoyingly in the UK the handset will only access a walled garden of a few nternet sites. It also handles e-mail, but this is only available through the web browser and not via the phone’s interface.

Look for a review of the U15/A835 very shortly.

Microsoft handsets times three

A few months ago we were ready to write off Microsoft’s chances in the smartphone market. Now it appears to be mounting a real challenge to the Symbian operating system (as used by Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson) with three new handsets due in the store in the coming months.

Two (Motorola’s MPx200 and Orange’s SPV) we’ve already covered (cycle through our phones pages to find them) The third sounds like a really intriguing handset. Its the Voq Professional phone from Sierra Wireless. It looks similar to the original SPV and its line up of features is not too different from that handset – so no Bluetooth or integrated camera. Its key USP is that its numerical keypad flips open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. It also uses the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system for handsets – Windows Mobile 2003.

Neil McIntosh at the Guardian has had a play with is and his version is below

First impressions: it's a nice smartphone, light years ahead of the Orange SPV I've moaned about recently. For a start it uses a 200MHz Intel PXA262 processor with stacked flash memory which means that - combined with a much-improved and adapted version of Microsoft's Smartphone software - the experience is much more snappy. There are some nice features Sierra Wireless has added on top of the OS, too, including a very fast and easy way to file and retrieve information locally, and from the web/network.

The most obvious hardware feature is its fold-out keyboard: a QWERTY effort divided by a big, solid hinge. It's reasonably fast to peck out a message - certainly, much better than an alphanumeric keypad or even the SPV's fabric keyboard - although don't expect to be touch-typing. But the device is also light - lighter than the SPV? - if slightly taller, and around the same thickness.

The phone will be aimed squarely at business users; although it will play games and do fancy/irritating ringtones, the most important features will be pretty pragmatic; support for standard BigFirm email systems including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, for one.

Price info: top end of the SmartPhone scale, less than a PDA, which places it in the £200 - £300 bracket by my guessing.

more from here

Nokia 3650 becomes 3660

As we predicted Nokia is giving its odd-shaped 3650 smartphone a second chance to impress the punters. Except it has rechristened it the 3660, ditched that awful circular keyboard and improved the screen quality.

Other features include an integrated VGA camera, Pop3 e-mail, Bluetooth, web access and video capture. It runs using the Symbian 7 OS. It is out in November.

more from Nokia's website

Sanyo announces TV mobile

Just as we’re getting used to camera phones, Sanyo has gone one step further and introduced a moby with built-in digital TV.

Demonstrated at the CEATEC show in Japan, the TV phone features a 2.2in TFT high resolution display and can even record and playback TV images, thanks to a built-in flash memory. The ‘palmtop TV’ screen can also be flipped over from vertical to horizontal.

Nokia's N-gage -now on sale

We couldn't let the day pass without a quick mention of the Nokia N-gage which arrives in the stores today. One of the most hyped phones of recent years the N-gage packs an MP3 player, FM radio, gaming device, and of course a phone into one pretty compact and funky-looking package.

However, like many in the mobile and gaming industry, we think the N-Gage is on a hiding to nothing at the hands of Nintendo GameBoy Advance (to say nothing of Sony's upcoming PSP) and may prove a very costly mistake for the world's leading phone manufacturer.

It is not because it is too expensive - O2 already has it for £100. It is just that it will never match the GameBoy Advance in terms of games, battery life will be a real issue and the very annoying way a person has to take out the battery to change games is a real flaw.

Still for other people's take try the BBC for the background, CNN for a scathing review and Wireless Gamer for the verdict from the streets.

The best camera phone ever?

Bad news for budget digital camera makers. Casio has become the first manufacturer to unveil a mobile phone that can take pictures of two mega pixels. This is the equivalent of a good quality low-end digital snapper.

Debuting at the CEATEC exhibition in Tokyo, the A5403CA clamshell phone can produce images of up to 1,600 pixels by 1,200 pixels resolution (UXGA). Other camera-like functions include auto focus, a digital 10X zoom, digital movie function and a number of picture taking modes, such as "close-up," "evening" or "portrait."

Images can be stored in the telephone or on a Secure Digital (SD) memory card. The built-in storage is enough space for 32 images taken at the highest resolution.

It goes on sale in Japan in December.

Several makers unveiled one mega pixel camera phones for the Japanese market earlier in the year. Sony Ericsson is tipped to be the first manufacturer to offer Europeans a one mega pixel mobile, although the Sharp GX-30, rumoured to be arriving in the UK in the spring, is also likely to be equipped with a one mega pixel camera.

TV on your mobile - coming soon

Today’s big CEATEC story is that Sony has unveiled plans to bring EastEnders to your mobile phone. It has unveiled Mobile Movie, a new Memory Stick application that enables video content, including programmes recorded from analogue TV, to be transferred on to the card and then viewed on a handset.

The company was also parading a range of Mobile Movie products including a Memory Stick compatible video recorder. Mobile Movie Memory Sticks are also being developed for in-car use.

Already KDD and Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company have delivered Mobile Movie compatible phones. With talk of a worldwide launch we don’t think it will be too long before this killer feature arrives on Sony Ericsson mobiles.

Sony Ericsson P900 confirmed

Still no news from Sony Ericsson, but nice of 02 yesterday to confirm in its video press release the existence of a model called the Sony Ericsson P900. This is destined to be the successor to the popular P800 and if rumours are correct will arrive before then end of the year.

Read on for more details

The Sony Ericsson P900 features the following revisions to the original

* Much better screen - 65k colours to put it in line with handsets like the Sharp GX20
* Smaller, thinner and generally much cooler casing
* Proper metallic stylus (not the rubbish plastic one on the P800)
* Real removable keypad
* Symbian OS 7

The phone certainly needs a revamp as it will face stiff opposition this autumn from the Orange SPV2, Treo 600 and Nokia 6600.

more from

www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/products_p810.htm

World Cup on your mobile

O2 has joined Vodafone and Orange in launching video content available via GPRS. Free until January 31st the highlight of the new service is that it will enable customers to download or stream clips from this month’s Rugby World Cup.

Other content includes news, comedy, music, fashion and sport from partners like ITN, CNBC Europe, Classic Comedy, Bake, Fashion TV, GMTV and the Extreme Sports Channel.

The Rugby content features half and full-time highlights from Australia, special interviews with coaches and players and a choice of nearly 100 classic RWC 2003 moments such as 'top tries'. The clips vary in length - averaging 10 seconds for a 'top try' to 45 seconds for highlights and interviews.

The service went live last night – so read on for our verdict…

Firstly not all handset owners can access the clips. At present users need a Nokia 3650 or a Sony Ericsson P800. From November, this will increase to include the new Xda II, Nokia 6600, Siemens SX1, Motorola V600 and Sony Ericsson P900.

We found a stray Nokia 3650 went to O2 active and downloaded and streamed a rugby clip.

In all honesty it is pretty much what you’d expect. The quality of the images is just about watchable, but prone to blocking, and in the case of streaming, crashing/buffering. 02 has been quite clever in choosing Rugby as, unlike football, the ball doesn’t tend to move too quickly over long distances. Nevertheless the classic try we saw ended up with a pool of players merging into a multi-coloured blur.

Fair play to 02 for launching the service, but if it expects anyone to pay for this stuff it really is deluding itself.

Now Posh loves Siemens

More bad news for Vodafone. It appears that it isn't just David Beckham who has been using a Siemens SL55 rather than the Sharp GX20 that he advertises - his missus has been spotted with one too. Eagle-eyed gadget correspondents at The Sun noticed Posh carrying the SL55, recently voted fashion phone of the year by Mobile Choice magazine, in Madrid last week. Click here for the photographic evidence.

Earlier in the week the Currant Bun also broke the news that Posh and Becks both carry Blackberrys with them. Apparently the couple use the e-mail device, sold in the UK via T-Mobile and O2, to keep in touch with their agent.

Death of the PDA?

In a week that has seen the launch of two new Palms (Tungsten T3 and Tungsten E) and a pair of Sony Clies, The Guardian wonders if the PDA's days are numbered as consumers gravitate towards smartphones like the Orange SPV E-100, Handspring Treo 600 and Motorola MPx200.

At present the PDA’s trump card is the size of its screen, which makes for a more rewarding experience while web surfing, gaming and working on Word and Excel files. The arrival of fold up LCD screens though (see here) could change all that.

The year's best mobile?

Picking the best phone of 2003 is a tough call. So fair play to the judges from Mobile Choice magazine who stuck their collective necks out and named the best handsets and networks at a glitzy awards ceremony at London’s Olympia on Thursday night.

They plumped for Sony Ericsson's T610 as phone of the year, giving its big rival Sharp’s GX20 the consolation prize of camera phone of the year. It was a good night for other manufacturers begining with S too as Siemens scooped best fashion phone for the SL55 while Samsung took overall handset manufacturer of the year.

Just like the previous Mobile Choice awards the evening was a cracker with magazine editor Huw Morgan kicking off the proceedings in style and then passing the baton to compere Jack Dee who managed to offend just about everyone in the phone industry.

After naming the winners several networks and manufacturers unveiled sideshows.
Siemens, sponsors of Real Madrid paraded the club’s top recent signing accompanied by his wife - or at least pretty convincing Posh and Becks look-alikes, while Samsung enabled the losers to take their frustrations out on their rivals in a boxing ring. Oh, and Virgin Mobile apparently had pole dancing, but owing to the huge crowds surrounding it we couldn’t get near enough to its stand to verify this

Here’s a list of the winners of the main awards

Best phone – Sony Ericsson T610
Best camera phone – Sharp GX20
Best fashion phone – Siemens SL55
Readers dream phone – Nokia 7250i
Best PDA – Dell Axim X5
Best gaming phone – Sharp GXD10i
Best manufacturer – Samsung
Best network – Orange
Best network service – Vodafone Live!
Best pre-pay package – Virgin Mobile

LG phone review

Over at The Guardian there's a review of the 7100 - the very first phone for the UK market from Korean company LG. While the model is crammed with facilities (including for the first time on a camera phone an integrated flash and an organic LED screen) it's not that easy to use it to take images and its screen can't match rivals like the Sharp GX20. Still for Orange customers with a taste for the off the wall it is well worth considering.

Siemens budget phones

The team at Siemens Mobiles certainly keep themselves busy. The company has unveiled two new handsets this week and has big 3G announcements due early next month.

The two new handsets are both mid-range models aimed at youngsters. They both look pretty cool, though neither features an integrated camera. They’ll be on sale in the UK in October.

Read on for specifications and images

C62

Colour screen
GPRS
MMS
Compatible with Siemens Quick Pic camera
Polyphonic ringtones
Games
Weighs 85g
Available in three colours

A60

Colour screen
Triple band
Polyphonic ringtones
Games
WAP browser
Weighs 85g

Video over GPRS - yeah right

There’s a really good feature in Media Guardian by Dominic Timms about the future of video on mobile phones.

Last week Vodafone signed a deal with UEFA to offer Champions League footy highlights to its subscribers over 2.5g GPRS networks. A date hasn't yet been announced for a UK launch, but there’s a an interesting quote from Graeme Ferguson, head of business development and content for Vodafone Global, who says "Our message is that you don't have to wait for 3G, you can do a hell of a lot on 2G."

Well here’s hoping that it is a lot better than the video currently being offered by Vodafone to Sharp GX20 owners. At the moment there’s just a series of virtually static clips from ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here.’ They take nearly two minutes to download and only fill up around half of the screen.

Unless Vodafone has some amazing compression tricks up its sleeve I really can’t see how it can offer fast-moving football action on a mobile in the quality that someone would actually be prepared to pay for it.

Orange also doesn’t appear convinced by video over GPRS. Its service, which is much more fun than Vodafone's, has been in the ‘experimental’ stage now for over a year.

Conversely Three’s premiership goals service is excellent. The recently launched Motorola A920 offers video at 24 frames per second enabling a football clip can fill an entire PDA-sized screen without blocking.

Even MTV, which has recently signed a deal with Three, is sniffy about video over 2.5g.

Sure i would like to be proved wrong, but I fear quality video over GPRS really is a pipe dream.

Is this the GX30?

Regular TF readers will know that we are huge fans of the Sharp GX20 camera phone. This, the latest incarnation of the Becks phones, boasts a superb colour screen that’s streets ahead of its rivals in terms of colour rendition and clarity. We also love the way it is so simple to use and takes great images.

We have however found a camera phone that might even supersede the GX20 in our affections. So cue fanfare for the Sharp GX30!?

Ok, so the model number says J-SH53 and yes it is a Japanese phone that has been on sale for several months. We are however convinced it provides the template for the next generation of European GSM Sharp camera phones for a number of reasons.

1 We know that Sharp has a phone called the GX30 that is set to debut early next year
2 This phone is available via J-Phone (the Vodafone-owned Japanese network)
3 All the enhancements are of the type we'd expect to find on an upgrade of the GX20
4 Someone fairly high up in Sharp Germany confirmed that a version of this phone, with a few minor alterations, would be on sale in 2004.

Anyhow, enough of the gossip on to the phone. Its main features are;

One mega pixel integrated digital camera – which will almost certainly make it the first phone capable of taking this level of images to go on sale in Europe

2.4 inch screen with QVGA (240 x 320) resolution (this is the same as the GX20). However the screen has 260,000 colours screen – much more than the 65k offered by the GX20. Also the second front screen has been upgraded too in that it now boasts 65,536 colours and is 1.2-inches in size.

MPEG4 video capture with up to ten seconds of sound

Secure Digital (SD) card slot – for saving images and storing music

MP3 player/voice recorder - an obvious addtion once the SD card slot is in place

256KB Java application storage capacity – a real boon for gamers

Dimensions 50 x 98 x 24mm

Weight Approx. 115g

We spent twenty minutes playing with the handset recently and were knocked out by its performance and level of features. The GX20 delivered a breakthrough in that it was the 1st camera phone with a screen capable of doing justice to the images it took. With one mega pixel images and SD card storage you really can think about leaving your camera at home.

3G phone reviews

Just as we predicted Motorola’s latest 3G phone available via the Three network, the A920, is selling like hotcakes. The phone itself has plenty going for it – superb screen, excellent video facilities, AGPS restaurant/shop finder service – but it is still probably a little too large for the mainstream handset buyer.

So how about all of those features in a smaller phone? Well there’s good news as Three has some pretty cool –looking handsets lined up for the coming months including a handset that has all the functionality of the A920 but less of its bulk.

Read on to discover which 3G phones are coming to the UK in the coming months.

Before we delve into the handsets a quick update from Three in the UK. A company spokesperson confirmed today that…

1 It is policy for its handsets to offer just a walled garden of Internet sites rather than full HTML web browsing. This is however being constantly reviewed.

2 A service that will allow users to take advantage of the fast speeds of Three phones by using them as a modem for a laptop PC, will be arriving very shortly. No news on which handsets it will be though.

Motorola A925

You know we said that the A920 was the 3G phone you were waiting for. Well we actually meant this handset. It has all the killer features of the A920 including its 24 frames per second video playback, and it also runs the Symbian 7.0 operating system. Yet all this has been shoehorned into a smaller device. We expect to see it available in the UK through Three by Christmas.

Motorola A835

The successor to the A830 is a massive improvement on the original. Unlike its predecessor it boasts an integrated digital camera, internal antenna and is compatible with Three’s Video Calling service. Other facilities include MP3 playback, Java and video downloads. It also POP3 e-mail and a full web browser - although whether they will work with the Three network in the UK remains to be seen. The A835 is on sale very shortly. Look for a full review in early October.

NEC e616

Due in the stores in November is the successor to the most popular Three phone so far - the NEC e606. The e616 is pretty much the same phone with a few notable exceptions. Firstly it has GPRS as well as 3G, so in theory applications like e-mail and web browsing should be available outside of Three’s video coverage areas. Secondly it is smaller and more compact than the 606. Finally NEC has improved the battery life.

Sony Ericsson Z1010

First seen at the GSM Expo in Cannes in February, the Z1010 is rumoured to be available via Three in early next year. It is a clamshell model with a 65K colour display, MMS, and Bluetooth. It boasts Three's key Video Calling facility courtesy of a pair of integrated cameras. Other features include MPEG4 (video) and MP3 (audio) playback.

LG U8100

Due to arrive in Europe shortly, though not necessarily in the UK, this clamshell-design handset supports video calling and video capture facilities, which it displays on its 128 x 160 pixel screen. Also included is Java, Bluetooth, an MP3/AAC player and 64MB of storage. Other facilities include a music editor, voice recorder, SMS and MMS messaging, and a speakerphone. We reckon it is a dead cert to be one of the first phones Orange offers when it launches its 3G network next year.

Motorola V1000

The first 3G phone in Motorola’s clamshell V series features a futuristic design, two cameras, a front display, an internal antenna and a full web browser. It is considerably less bulky too than existing 3G clamshells like the NEC e606. You can see an image here

Three rocks and phones home

It has been a busy week for Three. After piloting the launch of the new flagship handset the Motorola A920, the 3G company has made two big announcements this week.

First up it has signed a deal with MTV Europe to deliver among other things music video clips, news reports and live performances. We downloaded a Kings of Leon video and found the video quality on our Motorola A920 was superb. Can’t wait for those Kylie videos to hit their playlist.

Speaking of the Antipodean pop princess Kylie will be able to make a video call back home now using a Three phone. For Three subscribers can now make video calls to Three phones in Italy, Sweden, Austria, Japan and Minogue’s homeland, Australia. Calls cost £1.50 per minute for the UK or £2.00 per minute when roaming in other countries.

Any Australian Three subscribers who fancy testing international video calls out get in touch. Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Arsenal Football club, your mates pad in Earl's Court – just name your backdrop and we'll be there with our phone (btw Motorola A920 owners preferred).