Samsung BizBee

What is the Samsung BizBee? A phone? Sort of. But really the word "BizBee" refers to a new sub-brand that Samsung have created to sell messaging smartphones.

Does this sound silly? Well, remember that "BlackBerry" is actually a sub-brand of RIM (Research in Motion). We suppose that Samsung want to make the "BizBee" brand well known in the same way.

"Samsung BizBee" represents a range of mobile phones that offer full business connectivity and functionality wherever the user might be. And that means a lot more than taking phone calls, it means the ability to surf the web, read emails and work with documents. And although Samsung have not explicitly said that the BizBee concept will run on Windows Mobile, the first BizBee phone certainly does.

So, what fabulous new handset have Samsung come up with to promote the BizBee range? Step forward.. the Samsung i780. Wait a minute.. haven't we seen this phone somewhere before? Yes - the Samsung i780 was announced a year ago in an industry where a year equals a product lifetime. Fortunately, the i780 is an excellent phone, but it is just a shame that Samsung couldn't come up with something completely new.

The Samsung BizBee i780 isn't exactly the same as the original i780, because it has now been "refreshed" (or if you prefer, "warmed over") with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. That's on top of a smartphone that combines a 320 x 320 pixel 2.6" touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard, comes with WiFi, HSDPA and GPS support.

We don't really like the "BizBee" name, but we have said for a long time that Samsung need to make their range easier to understand, and BizBee will certainly help.

Nokia 6260

Nokia 6260 Slide

The Nokia 6260 Slide is one of the most important handsets launched by Nokia this year, but annoyingly it is one that is hampered by a completely unmemorable model number that has been used before.

The Nokia 6260 Slide features a 5 megapixel camera, a high-resolution 320 x 480 pixel (HVGA) display, HSDPA and HSUPA high-speed data, WiFi and GPS. What's unusual is that all of these features are running on a standard Series 40 device, rather than a high-end S60 smartphone which makes the 6260 Slide the most powerful Series 40 device ever made, and the first S40 handset from Nokia to have integrated GPS.

In other words, these are high-end features that you would usually find in an expensive N-Series handset, repackaged into a phone that has genuine mass-market appeal. It's not a particularly cheap phone with an estimated retail price of €299 before tax and subsidy, but then that is about half the price of the Nokia N96 but with most of the really useful features still included.

Next2Friends Launches Live Mobile Broadcasting for BlackBerry Bold

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Next2Friends announced the availability of its ‘Live’ mobile video broadcasting application for the BlackBerry Bold smartphone from Research In Motion. Next2Friends Live enables members to share their lives from anywhere, from broadcasting the little things that make up their day, to capturing a must-see-moment, to bringing you unfolding events from across the world closer to home. The application, soft-launched in late 2007 and officially released in June 2008, is continually being enhanced by the Next2Friends development team to deliver the optimal service for all the members already sharing their lives through real-time, rich media.

LG KP500

It seems that just about every other phone launched these days is a touchscreen device, and the LG KP500 is no exception. LG in particular are very keen on this type of phone, so what sets the KP500 apart from other touchscreen phones in LG's range?

Simply put, the main proposition behind the LG KP500 is price - it's a fair bit cheaper than many other touchscreen phones. LG Germany say that the recommended SIM-free price is €229 (around £180) although realistically we would expect the street price to be a lot cheaper, and it will most likely be free with most contracts.

Facebook 2.0 Now Ready To Download

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Facebook 2.0 for iPhone has finally been released and it's ready for download in the App Store [iTunes link]. At first glance tooling around the new digs looks pretty impressive as promised. The app has come a long way but I can see it will take a bit to get a real feel.



Version 2.0 promises faster and more stable functionality. The New hotness in this version includes:

* Notifications
* Facebook Chat
* Full News Feed
* People Search
* Address book lookup
* Faster Photo uploading
* Inbox Search and Message Attachments
* Friend requests and your full Inbox and Inbox search
* Write on friends' walls and view their full profiles
* Upload photos from your library stored on the iPhone
* Photo tags (holding your finger down on the photo will show them)

HTC Touch 3G

One of the most attractive Windows smartphones on the market, the HTC Touch 3G is a compact 3.5G smartphone that also features WiFi and GPS.Before we look at the Touch 3G, it's perhaps worth noting the demise of the similarly specified and wonderfully named HTC Touch Cruise, because the Touch 3G does pretty much everything the Touch Cruise does.. but with a rather more boring name.

Searchme

Is it better to receive search result in thumbnail instead of text based? Searchme has announced the availability of its visual search engine for mobile devices. Searchme’s engine delivers results as a browsable list of “pages” - pictures of actual web pages that users can check out before visiting them. All mobile users can now access the engine at m.searchme.com.