By Andrew Liszewski

Cellphone design has come a long way in the past 25+ years, but if we forget those past models, we’re doomed to repeat them. Now I have no idea if that’s what Peter Hermans had in mind when he designed this Blackberry Bold 9700 case for a competition by Freedom Of Creation and accessories maker Freshfiber, but the results were good enough to be selected as one of the four finalists that “will be further developed for commercialization.” And yes, the plastic antenna does retract, but no, it’s not functional, it’s simply there for retro charm.

[ Freedom Of Creation - Preview of Blackberry Case Designs by Talents ] VIA [ MoCo Loco ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It looks like a hybrid between the iPhone and the Nokia N97, and it comes with pretty much every modern smartphone feature you could want including dual SIM card slots, quad-band GSM support, wifi, FM radio, analog TV receiver, 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, microSD card slot, an accelerometer, Bluetooth with A2DP, handwriting recognition and of course a 2MP camera. But the feature that will probably actually sell this phone, at least in North America, is the fact that it’s actually called the McLovin.

Now whether that’s a case of poor translation, or an intentional attempt to cash in on a fad that’s long since passed, I’m sure there are still people out there somewhere who found Superbad funny and will buy it just so they can tell people that yes, they are talking to you on their McLovin. Available from Chinavasion for ~$122.

[ McLovin Quadband Dual SIM China Cell Phone with Keyboard ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re not already familiar with the ‘Just 5′ cellphone, it’s a stripped down handset with large buttons and an easy-to-read display designed to be used by the older set who may otherwise have trouble operating or even seeing a more complex model. It also comes with an emergency SOS button on the back that will call up to 4 preset numbers when pressed in the event of an emergency, in addition to audibly alerting those near the user.

But the CP11 pictured here, which is the successor to the Just 5, totally complicates things with a pop-up LCD display that will surely have your parents or grandparents using the emergency SOS button when they can’t figure out how to get the screen to extend or retract. Now I can understand the logic behind the new display, since the larger 2.2 inch LCD allows the on-screen characters to be larger and even easier to read, but I do think it’s actually over-complicating the original model’s simple and nearly perfect design.

[ Just5 ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While I’m sure LG will happily dispute Chinavasion’s claim that this Penthouse watch phone is the world’s smallest, I really don’t think they’re actually fooling anyone. Technically it’s compact enough to be strapped to your wrist, but terms like sleek and svelte don’t really come to mind when you see it being worn in the product shots.

As cellphones go it seems aptly capable with quad band GSM support, dual-sim card slots and Bluetooth since you’ll probably want to use a BT headset instead of holding this thing up to your ear ala Dick Tracy. It’s also got a 1.5 inch touchscreen display, though I question how well it works given the manufacturer has included a keypad and a 4-way directional controller. As a smartphone though, I’m afraid the Penthouse’s multimedia capabilities are rather lacking. Photos are captured at just 640×480, and the included 506kb of built-in memory means the included 1GB microSD card is a must-have accessory. Videos are even worse, maxing out at 176×144 AVI files with a 5fps framerate. Needless to say interested buyers will probably only be picking this thing up for its admittedly compact size, and its relatively cheap $113 price tag.

[ Penthouse Cell Phone Watch ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Have you ever had one of those friends that always seemed to be texting the entire time they’re hanging out with you? Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply block their cell phone signal, forcing them to put down their phone for a bit? Or what about killing the phone signal in a theater, so you don’t have to hear someone’s Rick Astley ringtone halfway through your movie? All you need is this fancy Painting Cell Phone Jammer.

This somewhat generic piece of art does much more than sit on your wall and look mildly interesting. It can block the signals on several different cell phone frequencies. You can choose specific ones to block, and whether you want to block it for a moment, or until you decide to turn it off. All of this is controlled from a remote, allowing you to be rather inconspicuous about things. At a price of $150 for a device that can block signals in an 80 meter radius, I can think of a lot of people (mostly businesses) that would love to get their hands on one.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

The Bugatti Veyron’s million dollar price tag is somewhat justified given what the car is capable of, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same for this ‘Bugatty’ car-shaped cellphone. I mean it’s got all the basic features one would expect to find in a candybar touch-screen cellphone these days, but $200 for a run-of-the-mill, quad-band, gray market handset that doesn’t include a warranty whatsoever is asking a little much. In fact if the price tag doesn’t scare you off, the warning posted by UCables right on the product page should:

Warning:
1. China Mobile Phones does not come with CE certification marking. Any purchase is at your own risk.
2. You solely accept the full risk of any package (or part thereof) being detained by customs for whatever reason and acknowledge and agree that you will not hold IPmart liable for such packages or loss, for whatever reason being unable to be delivered to you.
3. You will also not hold IPmart responsible if the mobile phone does not work within the network coverage of your mobile phone service provider.

So in other words, proceed with caution.

[ 'Bugatty' Car-Shaped Cellphone ] VIA [ GadgetReview ]

By Chris Scott Barr

AT&T has received a lot of grief over their 3G speed and reliability, mostly from iPhone users. Being an iPhone user myself, I tend to agree with such statements. It’s usually not too bad, unless you’re in a crowded area where other people may be sucking up the bandwidth. While I can’t make any direct comparisons, my Sprint 3G card consistently loads pages on my laptop faster than my phone’s 3G connection through AT&T. What’s interesting is that a recent PC World test of the four major carriers, AT&T came out on top for speed and reliability for 3G.

In almost every city tested, AT&T had faster upload and download speeds than the other three carriers. In fact, on average they were 67 percent faster. It sounds like Apple might not be so crazy for sticking it out with AT&T. Granted, their coverage map is still a bit spotty, which means most areas aren’t able to see this awesome speeds.

VIA [ PC World ]

By Gaurav Kheterpal

There is some good news - Google Voice is finally available on the iPhone. However, the bad news is that it runs on your iPhone’s browser and not as a native application. Google has been trying hard to convince Apple to allow Google Voice on iPhone but, no dice.

Google then simply decided to take the matter into its own hands and developed a web version which can be accessed by any HTML browser running on the iPhone. It is recommended to add shortcuts to your home screen for the most important features such as Dialer, Compose SMS, Inbox and Contacts. Something is better than nothing and Google Voice running on the browser is certainly better than no Google Voice on your iPhone.

[ Google Voice ] VIA [ CSMonitor ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While they had little to no information about the phone itself, the good people at Texas Instruments were showing off this unnamed Samsung phone (I believe the model # 9600 was thrown around?) since it features a built-in DLP-based projector. While it’s not as thin as the Nexus One or the iPhone, it’s still remarkably compact given there’s a projector crammed inside! And a decent one at that!

Now a crumpled piece of copier paper isn’t the most ideal thing to use as a projection screen, but to be honest it’s pretty close to real world conditions. I mean if I was at my desk and wanted to show someone something via the projector, it’s probably the first thing I would reach for. And the projected image was suitably bright with decent contrast, so we’re definitely getting there!