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May 2009 Roundup.
31st May 2009
Nokia had a relatively busy month in May, but all the big five manufacturers came out
with new products too.
Nokia. The Nokia E52 isn't the most exciting phone
that we've ever seen, but it is one of the most practical and useful phones for everyday
business use. Toward the other end of the market, the low-cost Nokia 2730 Classic offers
a capable 3G phone for less than €100. The attractive, but basic, Nokia 2720 Fold is
cheaper still and attempts to introduce some glamour into the budget phone market. The
Nokia 7020 is another low-cost fashion clamshell, this time coming with "tap control". The Nokia
6600i Slide updates the old 6600 Slide with a better camera and some cosmetic changes,
but is it interesting enough to attract customers? Finally, the Nokia 6730 Classic is an attractive
mid-market phone with GPS, exclusively available on the Vodafone network.
Sony Ericsson. The Sony Ericsson Satio was first seen in
February under the codename "Idou", and it's likely to be the first 12 megapixel camera
phone to be on the market when it becomes available later this year. The surprising
Sony Ericsson Aino integrates with PLAYSTATION 3 and PC-hosted media, and it is also a very
highly specified touchscreen phone in its own right. The last of this month's trio of
Sony Ericsson phones is the Sony Ericsson Yari which comes with a five-megapixel camera
and "gesture controlled" gaming.
LG. More details were revealed about the LG GD900
Crystal, an impressive dual-touch phone with a large screen and a very full feature set.
Another touchscreen phone is the LG GW520, which comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard
and social networking integration. And just to show how popular touchscreen devices are,
LG also announced the LG GT500 with built-in GPS and a 5 megapixel camera.
Samsung. The Samsung Alias 2 is an innovative US-only
CDMA device, notable because it uses electronic ink on its keys, allowing their functions
to change dynamically between a QWERTY keyboard and standard numeric keypad. At the other
end of the spectrum is the Samsung C3060R, a phone designed to be as simple as possible
to use, but while still looking like a normal mobile phone. Aimed at the mid-market, the
Samsung S5200 is an attractive slider phone that might just struggle to get noticed in
a crowded marketplace.
Other Manufacturers. The Motorola W7 Active Edition is a strange
looking phone featuring gesture control, but it is not clear if it will ever make it across
to Europe. Finally, Garmin-Asus announced that the nüvifone G60 was proving difficult
to bring into production, but we wonder if they will ever actually get round to building
it.