Tech.Wapline

Samsung has unveiled their new ultra-cool mobile phones. Dubbed as the SPH-B6700, the card phone comes jam packed with T-DMB, a camcorder, mobile printing, a 2MP digicam, MP3 playback, and Bluetooth. Other specs include an electronic dictionary, “my pet”, portable disc, and a file viewer. Measuring just 8.7cm x 5.4cm and weighing 79grams, the B6700 has a stainless steel body in black onyx with silver chrome lining. The Samsung B6700 is currently available via KTF in Korea.

For business users who want Microsoft Office on their cell phones, Windows Mobile 6, the upcoming version of Redmond’s mobile operating system to be unveiled next week, will be a must-have upgrade.

Mobile 6 comes with mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

With the continuing increase in sales of smartphones at the expense of handheld devices, Office makes a lot of sense, especially for synchronizing with desktop files, according to Rob Enderle, principal at the Enderle Group.

Carriers and handset manufacturers who believe they can put the limited memory and storage to better use, however, are out of luck. Microsoft Office still comes with Mobile 6.

According to John Starkwether, a product manager in the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft, Office is part of the package. Starkwether conjectured that if a vendor really wants to exclude Office from the operating system, an accommodation might be possible.

Additional upgrades to the mobile OS include Microsoft’s Direct Push Technology with automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars, tasks, and contacts using Exchange Server.

For security and management, Mobile 6 will also give mobile network managers the capability of remotely wiping out all data from a device should it be lost or stolen. Other security features include certificate options and storage card encryption.

Business users will also be pleased with the inclusion of mobile versions of the .Net Compact Framework and SQL Server in order to access a company’s standard line of business applications remotely.

The Office applications are the most robust to date for the limited capacities of a cell phone. Spell checking in Word, though, is not included.

E-mail viewing will be easier on the eye with formatting, tables, and pictures viewable as originally generated.

One-click options for e-mail, such as “reply all”, moving a message to a subfolder and “delete” have been added to accommodate the restricted functionality of a small device.

Windows Vista users on the desktop will be able to swap music, pictures, movies and Outlook information between the Vista PC and the mobile device.

Windows Live will integrate mail, messenger, search, contacts, and spaces.

Call history is now placed inside the individual contact card.

Enderle said that although there was “a lot of great stuff” in Mobile 6 Microsoft still has to focus on ease of use.

“Compared to the Apple iPhone with its simplified interface, Mobile 6 is still complex to use,” Enderle said.

Devices with Windows Mobile 6 will ship worldwide in the second quarter.

Focused more on fun than on work, the sleek HTC S620 is a device designed to appeal to the Sidekick set. Though it resembles the Motorola Q, the candy bar-style phone is rubberised, rounded, and otherwise made friendlier for riding along in a pocket.
The handset includes Wi-Fi and its e-mail works well. When reviewed (as the T-Mobile Dash) it included little in the way of office applications, bundling only the ClearVue suite for viewing-but not editing-documents. This is likely to be remedied when it is available with Windows Mobile 6, which includes a mobile version of Office.

Typing on the cramped keyboard is tricky, as little horizontal space separates the keys, and the tiny buttons feel all mashed together. Because I had trouble getting the Wi-Fi connection to work, I often had to resort to T-Mobile’s slower EDGE network.

As an entertainment-oriented gadget, the Dash is a hit, offering a standout media player and a microSD expansion slot so you can add music to the device.

But regrettably, someone at T-Mobile forgot that this device needs to work well as a phone, too. Though the Dash lasted a stellar 10 hours in our battery tests, it didn’t fare well on other measures. Calls are loud and clear, but dialing them is difficult: Unlike every other smart phone, the Dash fails to supply an on-screen dialpad mode to let you dial digits by their letter alternatives. Whoops!

Still, overall, this capable and extremely svelte handset is a strong contender in the PDA phone sweepstakes.

On Thursday, Microsoft offered me the chance to play with Windows Mobile 6 ahead of the 3GSM show in Barcelona, Spain, next week. The short demonstration, which took place at Microsoft’s office in Singapore, was done using a currently available handset: the HTC S620 smart phone, also known as Excalibur, sold in the US as the T-Mobile Dash.

The S620 sports a small QWERTY keypad, a 2.4-inch QVGA (320 pixels by 240 pixels) screen, and support for GSM, GPRS and EDGE networks. Powered by Texas Instruments’ 200MHz OMAP 850 processor, the smart phone has 128 Mbyte of ROM and 64 Mbyte of DDR (double data rate) DRAM.

But what about the software?

At first glance, Microsoft’s attempt to make Windows Mobile 6 look more like Vista has resulted in a better-looking piece of software, with a new font and a cleaner overall appearance. But the most important improvements to Windows Mobile 6 aren’t cosmetic.

For starters, Microsoft has added the ability for users to use a smart phone to remotely search e-mails and other information stored on Exchange Server 2007. Windows Mobile 6 also allows users to configure their push mail settings and out-of-office notifications directly from their smart phone, instead of having to use their PCs.

Previous versions of Windows Mobile for PDAs allowed users to view Office documents, and that capability has now been added to the smartphone version of the software. In addition, users can now edit their documents. That feature may be useful for some Word and Excel documents, but I have a hard time believing anyone will be using Windows Mobile 6 to edit, or even view, PowerPoint presentations. The screens on these types of devices are just too small for this to be practical.

Other improvements to Windows Mobile 6 include offering more information about the people on your contact list. Start typing the name of a contact, say “John” for example, and Windows Mobile 6 brings up a list of contacts named John. Clicking on any one of these names brings detailed information about the contact, including different phone numbers and e-mail addresses, as well as information about your last call - or missed call - with the contact.

Microsoft also improved the browser and instant-messaging functions in Windows Mobile. For example, you can send text or voice messages to your MSN contacts, while chatting with several contacts simultaneously. If a contact doesn’t respond, you can also send a “nudge,” which causes the user’s phone to vibrate, letting them know that they’ve received a message.

Apart from these features, what struck me most about Windows Mobile 6 was its speed. The software seems much faster than previous versions. Applications opened instantly, without making the user wait.

Overall, I was impressed by the newest version of Windows Mobile. Previous versions did not appeal to me, but the improved speed and added features mean Windows Mobile 6 is worth a closer look.

Straighten your ties and button your suit jackets, RIM’s promiscuous debutante — the Blackberry 8800 — is up and dancin’ on on Cingular’s website. $500 list, or $300 after $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract, the 8800 brings everything we expected: quad-band EDGE, GPS, microSD expansion, Bluetooth 2.0, push-to-talk suport, and 5-hours talk / 24-days standby in a 0.55-inch device weighing just 4.73-ounces. 3G data? No. WiFi? Not this time. For that we’ll have to hold tight for the anticipated mid-year launch of the 8820.