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All posts tagged "europe"


Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sprint's Samsung Ace reviewed on Mobile Tech Review

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone News" @ 08:58 AM

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/pho...Samsung-Ace.htm

"If you think the Samsung Ace looks familiar to you, well, it is. We’ve seen its close cousins, the Samsung BlackJack late last year and the Samsung BlackJack II early this year, both on AT&T. While AT&T customers might think the Ace is old news, Sprint made a safe choice for its own customers by providing a proven and popular device that’s also a world phone. The Samsung Ace sits in between the BlackJack and the BlackJack II feature-wise with Windows Mobile 6, full QWERTY keyboard, EVDO and 1.3 megapixel camera. There is no GPS or Wi-Fi onboard. One thing that Ace is superior to both BlackJacks is the processor: the Ace has the Marvell PXA270 running at 312MHz. This world phone runs on Sprint’s CDMA network in the US with support for Sprint’s EV-DO for fast data; and it also comes with a SIM slot and the technology that allow users to use GSM/GPRS overseas."



Tong Zhang from Mobile Tech Review has given us a pretty good review of Sprint's newest Windows Mobile Standard device, the Samsung Ace. I'm not a huge fan of the Sprint network, or any CDMA network for that matter, but I do love the fact that this handset comes equipped with a SIM card slot for overseas travels. Unfortunately, those hoping to pop in their US carrier based SIM cards will be disappointed as the device runs off of the 900/1800 MHz GSM frequencies which is more popular in Europe and Asia than it is on our side of the pond.


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

CDMA "Mobile Broadband" Deployment in Europe

Posted by Mike Temporale in "NEWS" @ 09:30 AM

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=6546

"Nordisk Mobiltelefon is launching a nationwide CDMA450 network in Norway to provide telecommunications and broadband services to consumers and enterprises. CDMA2000 is now deployed across the European continent with 12 operators offering voice and broadband data services in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and the Ukraine. Other operators are planning to deploy similar CDMA2000 services in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden."

It appears that CDMA is being offered more as a mobile broadband service than for mobile phone usage. Regardless, it's pretty interesting to see the rise of CDMA in the land of GSM. :)

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  • Source: Pocket PC Thoughts


Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Samsung Launches the Slim QWERTY i320 Smartphone in Europe

Posted by Kris Kumar in "HARDWARE" @ 06:10 AM

http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/PressRelease.asp?seq=20060704_0000268466#

"Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leading provider and innovator of mobile phones, announced its launch of the SGH-i320 , new Slim QWERTY Smartphone, signaling the company's drive to the smartphone market. The sleek and stylish Samsung i320 is a super-slim bar type handset, measuring just 11.5mm in depth and 95g in weight with an easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard has the same keyboard layout used in personal computers, enabling users to send emails and text messages far more conveniently; such a fun and simple methodology proved to be a huge success amongst consumers in the US and Europe. ... The SGH-i320 will be launched in Europe this month. The following launches will take place throughout the rest of Europe and South East Asia shortly."

User submitted image

Samsung has officially announced the Moto Q challenger, the i320, in Europe. Even though this unit is for the GSM networks, the fact that Samsung chose to launch it with a tri-band (900/1800/1900 MHz) module means that this unit will not be launched officially in the US. :( I am surprised that Samsung is making tri-band cell phones at a time when quad-band is becoming a standard, especially on the devices aimed at the enterprise users who tend to be travelers. The good news for the European users is that the device will have MSFP/push email support out of the box. They will also be able to claim that their i320 which measures 111 x 59 x 11.5mm is smaller than the Q (116 x 64 x 11.5mm).

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  • Source: the::unwired


Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tatung M1 Smartphone to be Available Q2 in Europe

Posted by Mike Temporale in "HARDWARE" @ 12:30 PM

http://www.theunwired.net/?itemid=2911

"First time surfaced last CeBIT, now it seems Tatung is ready to release their first Windows Mobile powered Smartphone, the M1. Tatung has started the mass production of its M1 Smartphone Platform that should be available during Q2 2006 in the shops across Europe as branded and ODM. This bar type Smartphone is lightweight, compact and integrates a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 1.2 and advanced features for the discerning professional and demanding consumers."

User submitted image

The Tatung M1 is has an external MiniSD slot allowing you to remove the memory card without powering off the phone. As well, the M1 will sport the long awaited MSFP (push email and AD2P for Bluetooth stereo support), 128MB of Flash NAND memory and 64 MB of SRAM. Arne has posted a number of pictures showing off this nice little device. Too bad it doesn't appear to be coming to North America. :(


Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Voq Professional Now Available in Europe

Posted by Mike Temporale in "NEWS" @ 02:00 PM

http://www.voq.com/site/news_events/news_20040921.voq

"Sierra Wireless today announced that the Voq Professional Phone�, a Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Smartphone developed by Sierra Wireless, is now commercially available across Europe through key distribution partners."

User submitted image

In case you haven't heard; the Voq is a unique phone that offers a fold-out QWERTY keyboard, and is now available in Europe. :)


Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Remo Smartphone To Be Released In China & Europe Soon

Posted by Mike Temporale in "NEWS" @ 11:15 AM

http://www.msmobilenews.com/?cid=632

MSMobileNews.com posted about this soon to be released Smartphone. The mobile phone is scheduled to be launched in China and Europe sometime in September of 2004. I guess that means any day now. :?

User submitted image

UPDATE: I'm not sold on this being a Windows Mobile based handset. The pictures are obviously photoshoped, but beyond that, there are a number of questionable things listed in the specs. What do you think?

Here is all we know about the phone.
User submitted image


Wednesday, July 7, 2004

Tech Ed 2004 Europe Highlights

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SITES & RESOURCES" @ 06:10 AM

http://blog.opennetcf.org/pfoot/PermaLink.aspx?guid=705df88f-9000-4f76-9a66-535359d0695a

"During the Keynote every delegate was given a handmade drum and encouraged to play along. This was certainly the most unusual conference idea I've ever witnessed. James Pratt and Steve Lombardi graced the stage in Smartphone and Pocket PC costumes to give their demonstration, hats off for them to be able to write and run code with their arms in a polystyrene suit!"

Peter Foot has posted a nice summary of this years TechEd 2004 Europe conference. If you're interested in what went on at this event, this is a nice read.


Sunday, July 4, 2004

TechEd 2004 Europe: Windows Mobile Future

Posted by Kris Kumar in "NEWS" @ 04:00 AM

http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/2747.html

"In this news item we are reporting live, from TechEd conference from Amsterdam in EU, about plans of Microsoft regarding future versions of Windows Mobile: those that will come after Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. So what's beyond Second Edition?"

Read the article to see what msmobiles found out at TechEd and MDC 2004 in Europe. In fact msmobiles has been making frequent and detailed posts regarding the information gathered during the conference. One of the interesting news item states that the next Smartphone version, the one based on recently released Windows CE 5.0, will be available in August 2005, and I still don't have a Smartphone 2003 model in my hands. So do check them out, and also the mug shots of Robert Levy and Neil Enns :-)

Back in March we reported on information regarding Windows Mobile future gathered from MDC 2004 in San Francisco. You can check them out here:
MDC 2004 Highlights
MDC 2004 Report


Saturday, April 3, 2004

CDMA Finds Work In Europe

Posted by David McNamee in "NEWS" @ 12:30 PM

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/36754.html

CDMA seems to be gaining strength in Eastern Europe, but not quite how we'd expect. There is a version of CDMA that runs in the 450 MHz band, formerly used by analogue networks. The 450 band can cover a greater geographic area with fewer towers. Because of this, CDMA 450 is finding a home as a solution for rural areas where installing 850, 1800/1900, or 2100 MHz equipment is cost prohibitive. Moscow Cellular and Delta Telecom have already launched CDMA 450 in Russia. Portugal, Belarus and Uzbekistan have also established CDMA 450 networks, with Sweden on the way.

Tags: europe, cdma, work, finds

Thursday, February 26, 2004

CommWeb: "Microsoft Touts Mobile Progress in Europe, but Sceptics Remain "

Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 01:39 PM

http://www.commweb.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18200466

This is an article about Microsoft's efforts in Europe, and how two new European carriers have adopted Windows Mobile solutions. But here's that part that made me raise an eyebrow:

"Microsoft continues to promote to the mobile industry proprietary Microsoft technologies originally developed for the PC environment, including Windows Media, MSN services, instant messaging and Digital Rights Management (DRM). However, with mobile phone penetration in the global market far greater than that for PCs, there is a growing resentment among Europeans at Microsoft's efforts to call the shots. They wonder, for example, why PCs should define mobile systems and services."

The carrier culture is an interesting one - they prefer to exist in walled gardens, and for years tried to keep their customers off the Internet and inside their billable realm with technologies like WAP, SMS, and MMS. What's interesting here is that Microsoft has tooled the Smartphone OS to be as friendly as possible to carrier technologies - the latest Smartphones today have support for SMS, WAP, and MMS. But they also offer Internet technologies like email, HTML Web browsing, instant messaging, and rich WAV/WMA ringtones - many of which use GPRS/1xRTT, which drives up carrier ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Yes, IM is a debacle right now, with competing IM clients struggling for dominance, but ultimately consumers have the ability to install other IM clients on their Smartphone and use whatever service they wish. There's no "lock in" from Microsoft here.

What do you think? Do the carriers have legitimate gripes with Microsoft, or is this a case of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome?


Tuesday, August 12, 2003

MiTAC Mio 8380 to Hit Europe in September

Posted by Robert Levy in "NEWS" @ 11:05 AM

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/32302.html

"The first mobile phone based on the reference design worked up by Intel and Microsoft is set to arrive in Europe by the end of September, the handset's vendor, Mitac, has revealed. Mitac's phone, branded the Mio 8380, runs Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 operating system on a 200MHz Intel PXA255 processor backed by 16MB of PC100 SDRAM. The clamshell case contains a 2.2in, 16-bit colour, 176 x 220 transflective TFT screen. There's also a 64 x 48 subsidiary mono LCD that displays phone status information.

The 143g phone features an integrated 110,000-pixel digicam plus an SD card slot for memory expansion. The 8380's radio supports GSM and GPRS communications at 900, 1800 and 1900MHz. Mitac claims the Mio's rechargeable Li-polymer battery yields two-three hours' talk time - 100 hours on standby."

Looking at the Mio website, this appears to be true. It doesn't, however, specify which carrier this will be sold by. The Mio is not shown on Orange's roadmap, so this is likely to come from somewhere else. Any guesses?


Friday, July 18, 2003

MiTAC Mio 8380 Smartphone to be released in Europe in Septem

Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 10:25 AM

http://ppcw.net/index.php?itemid=1410

Well it looks like you lucky Europeans may see the Mio 8380 before those of us in North America do! Here's what Arne Hess had to say:

"I recently received an update from MiTAC about the availability of the Mio 8380 Smartphone in Europe. According to MiTAC EMEA, the Mio 8380 will be available for European market end of Q3/September 2003 and launched with operators in Western Europe. The Netherlands, Belgium and France are - according to MiTAC - the "landing shore for introducing the Mio 8380". Stay tuned for more detailed information."


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