Upcoming Phones to Look for

Happy New Year Techies! Hope it’s been a good start for all. As we’ve progressed past a whole decade into the new millennium, mobile technology has evolved a great deal. Handsets are getting smarter as operating systems are getting beefed up to match each other as the competition get’s more brutal. In the high end smartphone section there have been quite a few handsets that were announced in the latter end of 2010 that we’re hoping will make it here in the first half of 2011. Here are some that I’d like to see make it to our shelves as soon as possible.

Google Nexus S
This is Google’s next gen Nexus handset, made by Samsung this time around. One could say it’s merely an upgraded Galaxy S and although that’s not too far off of the mark, this baby comes seriously loaded with goodies. It’s going to be Gingerbread out of the box first off, feature a Contour Display with a curved glass screen for optimized viewing and the surface of the handset is Oleophobic which means it should be ‘finger print’ resistant to quite an extent. No more gross smudges. An ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor is what’s under the Nexus S’ hood for smooth running.

The Nexus S features -

• a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and 16 million colors
• 3G, Wi-Fi with DLNA, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
• GPS with A-GPS support
• 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Geotagging
• 16GB internal memory
• 3.5mm handsfree socket

MILESTONE 2
If you liked the MILESTONE you’ll love what’s coming next. The MILESTONE 2 is sticking to the original design with a few minor but very relevant and, I have to say, warranted changes. The keypad has been extended since the nav-pad has been replaced with simple navigation buttons and the new display will be protected by Gorilla Glass. Motorola has promised Swype input as well as their MOTOBLUR UI with the MILESTONE 2 and all of it will run on a 1 GHz processor. Time to upgrade.

Other features include -

• a 3.7-inch touchscreen (capacitive) with a 480 x 854 pixel resolution and 16 million colors
• 3G, Wi-Fi with DLNA, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
• GPS with A-GPS support
• 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Geotagging and 720p video recording
• FM radio
• 8GB internal memory
• 3.5mm handsfree socket

LG Optimus 7Q (C900)
LG’s Optimus One has already made quite a stir in the Indian Android community. With the coming of Windows Phone 7 devices into the country, LG’s 7Q (also part of the Optimus series) is the next handset I’m really looking forward to having in our labs, being partial to the whole slide out QWERTY form. Since the 7Q will also be equipped with a 1 GHz processor, this Windows Phone 7 device should be as fast as it is smart.

Other features include -

• a 3.5-inch touchscreen (capacitive) with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and 16 million colors
• 3G, Wi-Fi with DLNA, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
• GPS with A-GPS support
• 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Geotagging and 720p video recording
• FM radio
• 16GB internal memory
• 3.5mm handsfree socket

Dell Venue
The Venue is the latest from computer maker Dell in their now quite popular mobile phone segment. It’ll be out running Froyo and will be ready for Honeycomb when Android shops that update out too. With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 GHz processor, we’re talking about speedy performance along with Dell’s customized Stage UI and heavy connectivity options. It’s something worth waiting for.

The Venue features:

• a 4.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and 16 million colors
• 3G, Wi-Fi, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP + EDR, USB 2.0
• GPS with A-GPS support
• 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, Geotagging and 720p video recording
• FM radio
• MicroSD card support
• 3.5mm handsfree socket

Nokia E7
We were expecting the E7 sometime in the last month of 2010 but it seems to be held up. We’re hoping to see it sometime soon and so it’s on my list. It’s the latest Communicator from Nokia and one that’s been a long time coming. Complete with its new pop out display featuring ClearBlack technology for optimized viewing in all lighting conditions, Gorilla Glass, a large QWERTY keypad, USB-on-the-go and HDMI out with Dolby Digital Plus enhancement takes this ‘Communicator’ to a whole new level. The one disappointment, if you can even call it that, would be that the ARM 11 680 MHz processor is a bit underpowered when compared to the other devices on this list. However its 1GB ROM and a 3D Graphics HW accelerator do make up for it.

Nokia’s E7 will also come with -

• a 4-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution and 16 million colors
• 3G, Wi-Fi, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 with USB-on-the-go
• GPS with A-GPS support for Ovi Maps
• 8 megapixel fixed focus camera with dual LED flash, Geotagging
• 16GB internal memory
• FM radio
• 3.5mm handsfree socket
• HDMI out with Dolby Digital Plus

You can let us know what you’re looking forward to this year as well. We just might include those in the next edition of Upcoming mobiles as your choice.