Black Cherry technical

If you’re a BlackBerry owner and wish to obtain a lifetime Garmin Mobile license, well there is no better time than now to obtain it. For a mere $99.99, owners of GPS-enabled BlackBerrys will be able to enjoy the benefits of Garmin Mobile’s turn-by-turn, voice prompted directions as long as their smartphone does not give up the ghost. Other benefits include unlimited access to content such as traffic, weather conditions and forecasts, fuel prices and more. Bear in mind that this plan is not transferable between other devices, as Garmin is not running a charity but a business here.

Samsung’s SGH-F480, also known as the Touchwiz cell phone will be arriving in Europe shortly, and this will definitely add more competition to the touch screen smartphone market that has so far been dominated by the iPhone worldwide. Some of the features on the Touchwiz include :-

• 2.8″ TFT LCD 262k color display
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera
• 240MB internal memory
• HSDPA and USB 2.0 connectivity
• Integrated FM radio
• microSD memory card slot

There is no word on pricing as at press time.

The privately released iPhone Software 2.0 Update features a bunch of new preferences as well as what is the beginning of geo-tagging support that integrates nicely into the magical cell phone’s Camera application. Build 5A292g as it is also know, will not ask the user’s permission in location-aware services such as “Maps” and “Camera” before transmitting data used to identify their current geographical location. Apple has also thrown in a toggle under the general preference pane which gives the option of enabling or disabling Location Services across the entire system. We ordinary mortals will just have to wait until sometime next month when iPhone Software 2.0 is released, hopefully alongside the 3G iPhone. Are you looking forward to both?

Hisense has just released its T68 3G-enabled cell phone at the HITECH ‘08 convention, and it comes in a pretty ordinary candybar form factor that won’t win any awards for its looks. Still, you get a touch screen display with Bluetooth connectivity, JAVA and WAP 2.0 support, as well as the ability to play back audio and video file formats. I wonder what the operating system will be like, being touch-based an all.

Samsung’s Instinct smartphone will be hitting Sprint’s retail stores this coming June 20th, so mark that date on your calendar if you prefer this over the much touted 3G iPhone. To get a recap of the features available on the Instinct, head on here.

And you thought that only comic book covers receive variants - Sony Ericsson’s highly sought after (at least, before the HTC Touch Diamond was released) XPERIA X1 will be receiving a couple of variants in the near future, where the XPERIA X1a will arrive on US shores under the AT&T banner, taking advantage of its 3G network. As for the rest of the world, they will have to settle for the XPERIA X1c. What’s the difference between the two? Why, choice of 3G frequency support, that’s all. The X1a will sport a quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) radio and a tri-band (850/1900/2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA radio for 3G data connectivity, whereas the X1c relies on a tri-band (900/1900/2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA 3G radio instead.

Talk about a blatant rip off - CECT isn’t new to the phone clone scene, and here they are with yet another rip-off, this time taking on the form factor of the Nokia N96. Surprisingly, it looks extremely close to the real thing, and will feature the following specifications :-

• Tri-Band 900/1800/1900MHZz
• 2 megapixel camera
• Bluetooth stereo connectivity
• Dual 3D stereo speakers
• 3″ 262k color LCD display
• Video and audio playback
• microSD memory card slot

Definitely won’t be able to hold a candle to the real Nokia N96 in terms of specifications, as you can see above.

DeviceAnywhere finally brings remote access to Palm handsets through its Palm Virtual Developer Lab, offering a more efficient application development on Palm smartphones. This is said to “dramatically reduce the time and resources required to develop, test, monitor, and deploy applications and content for Palm smartphones”. Available globally to all developers (at least those who have registered for DeviceAnywhere’s Palm package that is), one will be able to work with one another from anywhere in the world at any time, relying on the strength of a better connected developer community in order to yield better quality products as well as a much earlier release time than expected. Some of the featured devices include the Treo 755p and the Palm Centro.