Smartphones Explained!!

At Mobile Centre , we liberally use the term 'smartphone' in our reviews and features, assuming that it's as common a term as 'mobile phone' or 'computer', but we've realised that there are still people out there who aren't too sure what it means. Many of them may actually be using a smartphone right now, but they just don't know it. We are regularly asked the question "What is a smartphone?", so here, we'll try and explain to you what a smartphone is and how different it is from a regular phone.

Many have tried to describe smartphones as phones with PDA-like functionality. Now, while it is true that smartphones offer PDA-like functionality, the converse is not true: not all phones with PDA-like functionality are smartphones. Regular or basic phones may also come with a set of features, such as a task manager, calendar, alarm, notes etc., but this doesn't make them all smartphones.
Similarly, smartphones have also been associated with touch-screen phones. This is because a lot of Windows Mobile phones like the i-mate and O2 offerings had/have touch-screens. But not all touch-screen phones are smartphones, and not all smartphones are touch-screen capable.
In the simplest manner, a smartphone is a phone that let's you install applications on it to extend the functionality of the phone.
Traditionally, this doesn't include phones that let you install Java MIDP or BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) applications, as those midlets are often sandboxed, i.e. confined to their own memory space with not much interaction with other system components or applications. However, this distinction has also diminished sufficiently as Java MIDP applications have become more powerful, gaining access to phone features such as Internet connectivity and the camera. But even then, technically, regular phones with Java MIDP support are not smartphones.

Smartphones also allow multitasking, for eg. letting the web browser load a page in the background while you compose an SMS or an email. New multimedia phones have added this feature to the music player application, which can be pushed to the background while playing music to let you access other phone features, but this is limited to just that application. Regular phones may also offer a rudimentary form of multitasking where the application stays active in the background during an incoming phone call.Smartphones run an operating system. Normal phones all use their own simpler, proprietary user interfaces. Nokia uses Series 40 (used in phones like the 6610 and 6270), Motorola uses the ageing P2K UI and others like Sony Ericsson and Samsung also have their own interfaces that are either the same or similar across their range of phones. Smartphones use more powerful operating systems such as Nokia's Series 60 UI based on the Symbian OS platform, used in devices such as the 6600, 6630, Nseries and Eseries phones. Sony Ericsson uses Symbian OS UIQ, used in the P and M series phones and also the new W950i Walkman. i-mate, O2, HP, HTC/Qtek/Dopod etc. all use Windows Mobile.

Palm and BlackBerry devices have their own proprietory operating systems similar to non-smartphones, namely Palm OS and BlackBerry OS, but these are both open systems that third-party developers can create applications for. In contrast, you cannot create low-level, natively executable applications for non-smartphones such as the 6610, RAZR V3i, K750i or the X820.
Apple's recently announced iPhone runs OS X and has almost all the features of a smartphone, but it isn't a true smartphone because third-party developers cannot create applications for it. The iPhone will only be capable of installing and running applications released by Apple, making it the iPhone version of OS X more of a proprietary UI than an open operating system. As Engadget said it, the iPhone is not a smartphone.

Some phones also run Linux-based mobile operating systems, but not all devices across brands, running Linux-based UIs are compatible with each other. You can't get one application that works with more than one phone, for eg. the Motorola MING, Samsung Qtopia and Yulong Coolpad 858. This is because all thse manufacturers are incorporating their own, customised versions of Linux into their phones, without sticking to any standards, doing away with the openness of Linux and reducing the mobile efforts to mostly proprietary interfaces. The solution might lie in OpenMoko, an open Linux-based platform for mobile phones that's not restricted to a certain brand or company. Xanadux is also interesting; it's a project that's trying to port Linux on to Windows Mobile mobile handsets.Motorola is also phasing out its P2K UI in favor of the new Linux-based UI which will be incorporated in all their phones from now on. Again, this won't make all Motorola phones smartphones, because even though the code is based on Linux, the features of the interfaces will be limited.

BlackBerry handhelds run Java-based BlackBerry OS
Needless to say, Nokia's Series 60 platform is the most popular. According to Canalys, Series 60 enjoyes upto 72.8% of the smartphone market, followed closely by Linux at 16.7% and Windows Mobile with an abysmal 5.6%. The Linux figure, however impressive, includes non-smartphones also. Nokia's Series 60 is not popular just because it's Nokia - which makes anything they promote popular by default - but because S60 makes the phone in your hand more powerful, compared to Windows Mobile that essentially creates lesser powerful computers in your hand. It's this approach that makes using Series 60 a very natural process for any user.
We hope this article clears up any confusions and misconceptions about smartphones you may have had. If not, use the comments box below to let me know.

Sony Ericsson W880i leaks out!!

The Sony Ericsson W880i, formerly known as the Ai , has received FCC clearance.

The W88i is expected to be ultra slim — a first from Sony Ericsson. It will be Walkman branded, as the model number and the color scheme suggests. It is also expected to be a tri-band GSM and 3G/UMTS phone. There aren't any official details, but the info doing the rounds says it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, a QVGA screen and the usual Bluetooth, Memory Stick slot, etc.

It is expected to hit the markets around March this year.

LG Goes Official with KE850 Prada

In the midst of the Apple iPhone fanfare, the other device received a fair amount of attention, LG's speculated KE850 Prada phone, has been officially announced by LG.
The KE850 Prada claims to to be the world’s 'first completely touch screen mobile phone', which is actually incorrect on two counts. First up, it has dedicated 'hard' Call and End buttons below the touch screen; and consequently, the second reason is that we've been seeing similar devices for years (O2 XDAs, i-mate JAMs and even Motorola's A1200 MING). Anyway, let's see what else the device has and how it stacks up with Apple's iPhone.

The KE850 is a tri-band GSM handset with EDGE support, unlike the quad-band iPhone. The device is smaller, though, and has smaller 3-inch screen, compared to the iPhone's 3.5-inch screen, with the resolution being fixed at 240x400 (vs. 320x480 on the iPhone). The user interface is Flash-based. There's no word on any revolutionary form of input (like the iPhone’s multi-touch).
It packs in a 2 megapixel camera like the iPhone (but with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens), but the Prada has an LED flash to spice up the night shots a bit. The internal storage doesn't go into gigabytes, but it does have a microSD card slot so you can add in upto 2 GB, I would presume.
The Prada has only Bluetooth 2.0, not WiFi like the iPhone. Also present is USB 2.0 with Mass Storage support so you can just drag and drop files without requiring any iTunes-like software! It comes with an audio/video player that supports MP3, AAC, WMA, and RealAudio, MPEG-4 and H.264/H.263. The document viewer supports Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, PDFs and text files too.
The LG KE850 Prada is expected to sell for around 600 Euros (Rs. 34,364) which is around US$780. That makes it more expensive than the iPhone's $699, but at least you can buy it next month, much, much before the iPhone.

Nokia Announces USB Chargers

Nokia is finally offering a USB charger adapters that will work with any Nokia phone.
The world is finally changing. After most phones (like most Windows mobile handsets and recent ones from Motorola and LG) have started offering standard USB chargers and China trying to make it compulsory to include USB ports in all phones, Nokia seems to have realized this and is offering a truce: a charger that plugs into the USB slot on any PC, laptop or Mac, and recharges from there.
There are two models available, a 2mm one (CA-100) and a 3.5mm one (CA-70). No word on the price or availability, however. There are lots of such third-party cables available out there, but this one is the official one. You can also make your own!
Nokia has already included a miniUSB port in phones like the 5300 XpressMusic edition.

Motorola FLIP W375 Launched

The new Motorola FLIP W75, the upgrade to the budget style king W220, is finally making its way to stores.The changes in the W375 include a larger 128x160 display, MP3 ringtones support a VGA camera and USB connectivity support. The tri-band GSM handset also supports GPRS and MMS. Strangely, the internal phonebook seems to have been reduced to 100, which has been a cause for concern for many. Also, the internal memory of the phone is a sissy 1.3MB, with no card slot to add more. The W375 retains the external LED status icons and FM radio, ensuring its success with the market. It may also come in multiple colors as in the picture.

there's been a surge in comments asking when the phone will be released. It's available now for Rs. 5,400 approximately.

Apple Introduces the iPhone

Steve Jobs was on stage at Macworld 2007 just some time ago and he officially introduced the iPhone that everyone has been yearning for for years.

The iPhone is being described as a widescreen, touch-controlled iPod, a mobile phone and an ‘internet communicator’, all rolled into one device.The iPhone runs a version of OS X, allowing for full fledged apps to be created for the phone, rather than the limited versions of other mobile phone applications.

The iPhone is being described as a widescreen, touch-controlled iPod, a mobile phone and an ‘internet communicator’, all rolled into one device.
The iPhone runs a version of OS X, allowing for full fledged apps to be created for the phone, rather than the limited versions of other mobile phone applications.
The iPhone is a fully touch screen device with no keys at all or even a stylus. The screen is a large, 3.5cm one with a high resolution. It uses Apple’s new, patented ‘multi-touch’ input method that supposedly prevents any accidental touches or presses, boasting of a new level of accuracy with touch input.
When required, a full QWERTY keypad is displayed on the screen, similar to Windows Mobile or Symbian UIQ phones, but this one supposedly is easier to type on, automatically eliminating any mistakes you may make from typing.
The iPhone has interesting features such as iTunes’ CoverFlow running on the phone in widescreen mode. It can play not only music, but also videos and photos. Photos can be zoomed in or out by using finger gestures such as moving them closer together or away from each other.
The device seems a little large in the hands, but it’s ultra slim at just 11.6mm, which is thinner than the RAZR. It comes with a standard 3.5mm stereo headphones jack and a built-in speaker. It has the iPod connector to sync with iTunes on the PC or Mac. It will come with a wired, stereo headset and also a Bluetooth headset.
The iPhone also has a 2 megapixel digital camera built into the device.
There’s a choice of 4GB or 8GB of space available on the iPhone to use. There is no option of adding any extra memory via memory card slots.
The iPhone is a quad-band GSM device with EDGE support. Unfortunately, there is no 3G/WCDMA support, which would have been expected of a device being touted as ‘revolutionary’. It also runs Safari, the web browser, for full HTML support. The phone comes with Google Maps built-in.
Email is covered by a POP3/IMAP client. They’ve mentioned support for Microsoft Exchange as well, but that may just be over IMAP. Yahoo will be providing free push-IMAP email to iPhone customers, giving them BlackBerry-like features.
Personal and local connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi support.
The device is expected to offer around 5 hours of talk time and 16 hours of music playback time.
The iPhone will be available this June, exclusively on Cingular in the US. The 4GB version will cost $499 (Rs. 22,500) and the 8GB version will cost $599 (Rs. 26,700).