| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
It's the radiation-emitting season of mobile phones, and global handset makers have been pushing out their latest models with a cheery vengeance.
At CommunicAsia, part of the Infocomm Media Business Exchange (imbX) trade event held at the Singapore Expo, Samsung and LG stole the show with their big booths, comely booth babes (LG wins) and a glittery portfolio of phones. We bring you the pageant contestants.
Miss Geo-Friendly: Garmin Nüvifone
Ever “lost” your car in one of those gargantuan multi-level carparks seemingly designed by a frenetic hamster on speed?
GPS developer Garmin has created a gem of a phone – the Nüvifone – packed to the brim with navigation tools to help the lost soul in distress.
The Linux-based phone marks the position in which it was last removed from its vehicle mount, effectively resolving the age-old missing-car-in-carpark predicament. Pictures snapped with the built-in 3-megapixel camera will be geotagged. The Nüvifone also features Google’s local search capability. Enter “cinemas” and Google will churn out the results based on where you are.
The phone has a fantastic single-touch interface. Kudos to the browser that is based on Webkit, the same engine behind Apple’s classy Safari browser. Its 3.5-inch QVGA screen is refreshingly matt, smudge-free and can be viewed clearly from any angle and in sunlight.
Sadly, the phone is estimated to reach local shores only in the second quarter of 2009. In this game, who arrives first wins. Unless you’re the iPhone.
Miss Body Beautiful: LG SECRET
Arguably the best-looking phone on display at CommunicAsia, the Secret(S$838) is LG’s flagship handset of the year – a slim slider with a carbon-fibre back, tempered glass front and pseudo-leather top. It’s only 11.8mm thin and the touchpad lights up in midnight blue.
According to its maker, the meaning of the product name, ‘LG Secret’, is to “tantalise the user with the intrinsic features of the phone”. We think it refers to the covert button on the right side of the phone that transforms the 2.4-inch display into a touchscreen.
Unfortunately, the screen (on the display unit anyway) is as responsive as a wooden dodo. The LG KF700 slider, also on display at the booth, responds more accurately to the touch and boasts stronger haptics feedback.
Thankfully, the Secret’s mighty DivX-certified, five-megapixel camera is a redeeming point – you can record and play QVGA video at 120 frames per second, digitally zoom at up to 16x, perform facial editing with the Morphing tool and adjust light settings with SmartLight.
Miss Heavyweight Champ: Samsung Omnia
Never mind the somewhat sinister ring to its name, the Omnia (S$1,098) is a great-looking smartphone from Samsung that’s first to market with 16GB internal memory.
The 3.5G, WiFi-capable phone is sheathed in a 12.5mm metallic chassis and fronts a large 3.2-inch WQVGA touchscreen. Yes, it does look like the iPhone, but which phone worth its antenna doesn’t mimic some shade of the Apple aesthetic these days?
The Omnia boasts what Samsung calls a TouchWiz user interface, which lets you tap, drag and drop items using your finger on the screen. The display set we fiddled with at the booth was slightly laggy, but not cripplingly so.
The screen supports the 16:9 format for distortion-free viewing of widescreen videos, and motion-sensing accelerometers change the screen orientation based on how the unit is held.
Other features include GPS capability with bundled Agis NavFone software and a five-megapixel camera with smile detection. Omnia runs on the rather bloated Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro OS.
Pricing and availability for the 8GB version has not been set.
Our Pick: Garmin Nüvifone
The user interface is killer, the screen’s a beauty and its league of GPS offerings leaves us woozy with excitement. And that’s not just because we’re geographically-challenged. Really. - TODAY/fa
|
