It’s Symbian day at our office today as we say hello to another of Nokia’s recently announced smartphones. The Nokia 701 will be one of the flagships of the new Belle edition of Symbian so its role in the company’s future plans is certainly big.

Bringing the new notification area, the customizable widgets and the flat menu, the Belle update certainly brings Symbian a step closer to the competition. In fact, the Nokia 701 felt quite intuitive to use, unlike the early Symbian^3 devices, which were still unable to shake off their non-touch heritage. Read more »

We’ve seen spy shots of the Nokia 700 in red and white but today we got a friendly visit by the real deal. The 700 is part of the incoming Symbian Belle trio and Nokia touts it as its most eco-friendly and smallest smartphone to date. Actually, they say it’s the world’s smallest smartphone.

At a mere 50cc, the Nokia 700 has a high concentration of features – from a ClearBlack AMOLED display, through 1GHz CPU, eco materials and some NFC magic for super easy Bluetooth pairing. Read more »

Samsung has worked up a new naming scheme for its Androids and today we’re seeing the first phones to abide by the new rules. Of course, old models fit the new naming scheme too, but what Samsung has done is codified the tiers (low, mid, high, premium, and “Super Smart”).

I’ll go over the four new models from Samsung (which hail from the M, W and Y lines) along with a few older ones (that conform to the new naming scheme) to see how well it works. You’re welcome to join me.

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After an official photo of the white version of Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II leaked about a month ago, today we finally have the real deal in our office. Well, it was truly worth the wait.

It’s a real pleasure to show you the world’s first live pictures of the white Samsung Galaxy S II. Read more »

Yesterday’s camera update to the Nokia N8 was off to a foul start and was quickly recalled. Today, we finally got the real deal from the Nokia beta labs and we’re happy to report on how it changes the already great video camera of the phone. The update is exclusive to Anna-running N8s but it’s an important one, so we tested it as well.

A few words on how we applied the camera update – it’s not a part of Anna as it wasn’t finished on time, so it’s not updated over the usual channels (it’s in experimental testing stages too). Read more »

Symbian Anna debuted a while ago with the Nokia X7 and the E6 but the original quartet of new generation Nokia phones that initially launched with Symbian^3 now gets to join in on the fun as well.

We put a Nokia N8 through the update process and fiddled with it – then we decided you might be interested in a quick Symbian^3 vs. Symbian Anna comparison. X7 and E6 owners might not, but if you have a Nokia N8, C7, C6-01 or E7 you should check this out.

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The HTC EVO 3D is HTC’s answer to LG’s 3D foray on the world tech scene. It features the solid foundation of the ultra-popular Sensation including a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU and the latest Android distribution – 2.3 Gingerbread. However the single 8 megapixel snapper has been replaced with a couple of 5 megapixel cameras, allowing for 3D photo and video capture, while the screen has been replaced by one that does glass-free 3D.

We’re already working on a detailed review of the EVO 3D, but until that one is complete you can enjoy the quick unboxing & hands-on video that we prepared for you. Read more »

The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro stopped by our office today and we have some initial impressions to share, plus an unboxing and hands-on video. The petite messenger is about the same size as its predecessor, but packs a lot more punch.

Standing at just 92 x 53 x 18 mm the Xperia mini pro packs a 3″ HVGA screen, a big improvement over the 2.55″ QVGA of the original. And performance has been improved quite a lot too, thanks to the 1GHz CPU and the 512MB of RAM. Read more »

T-Mobile sure loves tradition. The magenta colored operator began selling its myTouch branded droids a couple of years ago with the release of the myTouch 3G. Then along came the myTouch 3G Slide, followed by the myTouch 4G. Today we have the fourth member of the myTouch family which is called (yes, you got it right) the myTouch 4G Slide. It is made by HTC and has starred in quite a few leaks over the past few months under the name HTC Doubleshot. The Taiwanese company claims it is its best camera phone to date. This statement alone was enough to get us excited about spending time with the device.

Now on with some specs Read more »

It’s safe to say that the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S II is one of the most anticipated US market launches this summer. Here, across the Atlantic, we have been reading all the rave reviews of the mighty droid, and hoped we would soon see a chance to get our hands on Samsung’s flagship. Well, it looks like the wait will be over any moment now, people.

I just got this heavy parcel from the U.S. branch of Samsung. Inside was this box, and at the sight of it, my pulse skyrocketed. Read more »

Google announced the updated version of the Android Market app a while back but there was one small problem, the update wasn’t available for download then. But now we are hearing Google has finally started rolling out the update to device with Android 2.2 and higher. And we couldn’t help ourselves and we went to see what it’s all about.

The version number for this latest update is 3.0.27 (the one that leaked before was 3.0.26). Apparently, if you were running the previously leaked version you will automatically be updated to the new version.

Personally, I didn’t receive the update automatically (and I have a Nexus S, for crying out loud) so I got impatient and sideloaded it. I have been using it for some time now and here are my quick impressions of it. Read more »

Samsung continues with its U.S. offensive, folks. The latest droid to come from the Korean giant – the Exhibit 4G for T-Mobile, offers an interesting blend of high-end, and budget phone features. When we spent a few minutes with it about a month ago, we came out quite impressed. So when an opportunity came for more quality time with the device, we barely hesitated.

The Samsung Exhibit 4G is powered by Read more »

If you have been keeping track you would know that the recent batch of high-end Xperia smartphones pack some of the best LCD displays we have seen. Their Reality displays might lack a bit in viewing angles, but their image quality is downright splendid, and as the company would gladly tell anyone, their new Mobile BRAVIA Engine certainly plays a big part in delivering it.

Bravia Engine OnNote: Mouse over or tap to toggle between Bravia Engine on and off.

Now marketing talk is always sweet, but very rarely true so we decided to check out if that engine really does anything or it’s a gimick. Here come our observations along with plenty of photos evidence that we gathered along the way. Read more »

We already had the pleasure of getting the Galaxy S Plus around our office a while back. It even guest-starred in an epic fight with the Optimus 2X and Galaxy S II and survived to head its own preview. All the while it was powered by a pre-release 1.2GHz processor instead of the final 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T one. Now it’s here with all the toppings in all of its retail glory and you can bet it’s ready for its own review.

As we’re working on it we thought we’d at least bring you an unboxing video with a short UI demonstration. Read more »

The Viber application that won the hearts of over 12 million iOS users has now landed on the Android Market, doing just about everyone involved a favor. Android users now have another way to make free calls and send free messages (data charges not counting), iOS users can do that with a lot larger portion of their contact list and Viber gets more users. And now that we had a day or so to play with the app we bring you our take on it.

To get started with Viber you need to go to the Android Market from either you phone or your desktop browser and install the free app. You then go through a quick activation process, where you enter your phone number (the only ID you would need) and then wait for an SMS to arrive, containing your activation code. Read more »