We said in our post that we estimate the phone will cost somewhere between $500-600. Well, we were wrong!

Thanks to a friend of ours, Lionel from Indonesia, who bought the phone from store, now we have the proof of the bill and we can say it loud and clear: Nokia C6 cost $315(without a contract), in Indonesia at least. Here are the pictures with the phone and the bill, paid in Indonesian national currency(rupiah).

1 Indonesian rupiah = 0.000111 U.S. dollars

2.850.000 Indonesian rupiah = $316.35

Nokia C6 is the name of the phone that is scheduled to be released this summer, but till now we haven’t found any official to confirm this.

The phone comes with a 3.2-inches resistant touch screen with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution. Display is featuring: brightness control, orientation sensor, proximity sensor and ambient light detector. Just under the display are 3 keys: Call/Menu/End Call.

The QWERTY keyboard that we’ve talk about is unveiled if you slide the phone on the right side and is featuring a navigation key.

On the back, there is a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and 4x digital zooming. Videos can be recorded 16:9 with mp4(640 x 360 pixels) or VGA(@30 fps) formats. Some reports are saying the camera will have 8 megapixel, but this is just a rumour.

The internal specs rule an ARM 11 434 MHz processor and 200 Mb memory. As usual the operating system is Symbian with 9.4 version with S60 5th edition user interface.

C6 comes with a large amount of apps:

• Calendar, Contacts, To-do, Notes, E-mail
• Nokia Messaging
• Social networking (Facebook, Hi5, MySpace)
• Ovi Maps
• Ovi Suite, Ovi Store, Ovi Share, Ovi Contacts
• PC Applications: Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Organizer, Lotus Notes
• Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger

Connectivity options available are decent for a phone these days, but could have been better: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 and 3.5 mm AV connector. It appears that Nokia didn’t step up yet to use Bluetooth 3.0 or Wi-Fi on all b/g/n bands. GPS and navigation rule out through A-Gps receivers and Ovi Maps application. Don’t forget, Ovi Maps offers now free lifetime navigation license. The browser is provided by Nokia and supports HTML, JavaScript, Flash Lite 3.1 and Flash(for streaming videos).

Nokia C6 will be released soon during this summer period and will have an estimated(retail) price of $500-600.

Update: It seams the price is near $315(without contract).

Source

Expanding the problem towards four other big mobile producers was not a smart choice for Apple and the time will surely prove that.

All four blamed companies filled press releases where they explained about their antennas and some(Samsung) claimed as “unacceptable” the decision of Apple. RIM made it clear that they are a global leader in antenna design and the they always avoided the designs like the ones Apple used on iPhone 4. HTC responded through a PR voice that they had just 0.016% users complaining about antenna issues. Nokia, one of the largest mobile producers ensured customers that they put antenna design on top of their priorities when they design a new phone.

Nokia

“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

HTC

“Approximately .016% of customers”, Eric Lin, the company’s global PR and online community manager exclusively revealed to us before adding that “we have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris”.

RIM

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.

Samsung

The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future.

Sources: Nokia, HTC, RIM, Samsung

The conference begun in Apple way: “We are not perfect” “We want to make all our users happy”, said Steve.

Then Steve admit that antenna issue is real, but this problem is on all smartphones(Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung). This thing may be possible, but why is Apple quoting other companies when they should have mind their own problem and solve it !? We think Apple point of view was shameless regarding this issue.

After the conference Nokia released a statement saying that when they build a phone,  they “prioritize antenna performance over physical design“. This is the full statement:

“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

After this, we were able to see that iPhone 4 is one of the best smartphone from the market and has been sold in more than 3.000.000 pieces. It has been reviewed by many publications(engadget, consumer reports, etc) and all claimed it’s a wonderful phone.

There has been 22 days since Apple discovered this problem and they start making their own tests about antenna signal on several phones: BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Omnia II.

Steve claimed that every phone have week spots and admit they made a big mistake when they designed iPhone 4: they marked the spot where the antenna signal could have problems.
Apple posted on their site a new section where we could see their Antenna Design and Test Labs.

Apple never releases a product without thoroughly testing it first. To do this, we built our multimillion-dollar antenna design and test labs. These labs feature 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.

Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality, dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours — iPhone 4 was field-tested in nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier equipment all over the world.

To calm down all users, Steve presented some data numbers:

-AppleCare recorded 0.55% users complaining about iPhone 4 antenna or reception.

-AT&T had 1.7% return rate for iPhone 4(iPhone 3GS had 6% return rate).

-AT&T recorded less than 1 additional call dropped/100 calls compared to iPhone 3GS.

Reports say that duct tape or bumpers solves the signal strength problem. To prove that Apple cares about all of their customers they will send every iPhone 4 owner a free case(bumper), until September 30. From next week you can apply to get a free case from Apple website. If you already bought one, you will be refunded by Apple. If you’re still unhappy with your iPhone 4 you can return the phone undamaged within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

In the end will like to finish here and say that we think Apple took the right decision, by offering free bumpers to everybody and we believe that with or without this issue they will continue to sell their products with big success.

Source

The 4-inches touch screen is a Super AMOLED capacitive with 16M colors and 480 x 800 pixels, same as Galaxy S. Multi-touch, accelerometer, proximity sensor, digital compass,  swipe text input are all available. Some of you will say this will battle with iPhone 4 retina display, but is not a fair battle, Apple device has 640 x 960 pixels.

Captivate is powered by an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor and is an Android based phone. Android v2.1 comes installed, until Froyo(v2.1) will become ready to be used, along the usual Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 user interface.

With Android you can choose to install thousands of apps from the Android Market™ or use integrated social networking tools if you plan to stay updated with your virtual life. Internal memory has 16Gb(microSD card extension is available till 32Gb) and RAM has 512 Mb, enough to boost your mobile experience.

The camera has 5 megapixel and auto-focus, no LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection come at supported features. Videos can be recorded at 720p@30fp. A VGA secondary camera is located on the front of the phone. Under the back cover, the 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery will want to last up to 750 h in stand by mode(2G).

As usual Samsung put connectivity in the top of his list and 3G, GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, microUSB 2.0 and GPS are all available.

AT&T announced that will start selling Samsung Captivate from July 18 and will cost an estimate $199.

Source

Motorola

Screen has 2.8-inches and is a TFT capacitive touch type(with Gorilla Glass) with 256K colors and 320 x 240 pixel resolution. The full QWERTY keyboard makes us think this mobile phone is built for social addict users.

The camera has 3 megapixel, digital zooming, fixed focus and video recording at 24 fps.

Android 2.1 with Motoblur and Flash Lite browsing will be featuring the software side of this phone while 512 Mb and a microSD card will support the memory.

Phone weighs 110 grams and has a 1170 mAh Li Ion battery, expected to last up to 330h in standby mode. Connectivity features are decent: Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, GPRS, 3G, microUSB, 3.5 mm jack port. GPS comes with A-Gps support and features Turn-by-Turn Directions with Google Maps™, eCompass, Assisted GPS.

Motorola confirms that Charm will be available to T-Mobile USA customers sometime this summer.

Motorola Announces its Newest Device with MOTOBLUR™: Motorola CHARM™

Exclusively for T-Mobile USA, Motorola CHARM packs smartphone features and social graces into a pocketable design with Android™ 2.1 and MOTOBLUR^TM enhancements

July 07, 2010

Libertyville, Ill. — July 7, 2010 —Motorola (NYSE: MOT) today announced the upcoming availability of Motorola CHARM™, a touch screen smartphone that packs a social networking punch with Android™ 2.1, MOTOBLUR^TM enhancements, a compact design and a BACKTRACK™ feature that makes screen navigation even more intuitive.

Motorola CHARM is expected to be available this summer exclusively in the U.S. for customers of T-Mobile USA, Inc.

“Motorola strives to provide an increased customizable user experience, which is enabled by our latest enhancements to MOTOBLUR and featured on the new Motorola CHARM,” said Jean Pierre Le Cannellier, vice president, Americas Marketing, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Combine that with a compact design, easy handling and all the features you would expect from a smartphone, and we believe that CHARM with MOTOBLUR adds the social ability and workability consumers are looking for.”

Motorola CHARM provides consumers all the features of a smartphone with the intuitive navigation of a 2.8 inch touch screen – all in a compact, pocketable design that makes messaging a snap using the combination of a full QWERTY keyboard and touch screen. The BACKTRACK navigation pad, located on the back of the smartphone directly behind the home screen, is similar to a laptop touch panel and enables an unobstructed view of the Web, texts, e-mails and news feeds. Plus, with Android 2.1 and enhanced MOTOBLUR features, CHARM offers new customization and filtering options.

“Being social with friends and family comes naturally for T-Mobile customers, and we think mobilizing their social experiences should be effortless,” said Saj Sahay, director of product management, T-Mobile USA. “With the new Motorola CHARM and enhancements to the Android and MOTOBLUR experience, we’re bringing more social skills to our broad portfolio of Android-powered smartphones.”

Motorola CHARM will be the first device in the U.S. to feature an enhanced version of MOTOBLUR built on Android 2.1, which syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more in easy to manage streams — from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter™, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail. MOTOBLUR now allows for even greater customization, providing users more options to follow who and what really matters.

MOTOBLUR filters can be selected from a single social networking account, contacts, group or messaging account so that users can select only the information they want to stream live to the Happenings and Messages widgets. Users can move and resize pre-loaded home screen widgets to personalize up to seven home screen panels for an even more custom experience.  Lastly, consumers can manage their phone’s battery consumption by selecting different power modes to conserve battery.

Contacts in MOTOBLUR are automatically synced to the phone from personal and work e-mail and social network accounts. MOTOBLUR will continue to provide convenience and peace of mind, as lost devices can be located from a secure personal information portal and even remotely erased if necessary. In addition, one user name and password brings back contacts, messages and connectivity to previously configured networks and e-mail providers.

Last, but not least, Moto Phone Portal enables you to access and manage your phone’s data from any browser through a USB or Wi-Fi connection. Edit content and view important phone information while at home or on-the-go. Leave pictures on a friend’s PC, share a video at the local Internet café or share a presentation during an important business meeting.

Additional features on Motorola CHARM include:

• Adobe® Flash® enabled Web browsing experience to view most of today’s content-rich sites
• Full suite of Google™ services including: Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™ and access to thousands of apps on Android Market™
• Pinch to zoom functionality and two-finger swipe to easily surf the Web and sort through photos

• Capture sharp photos with a 3MP camera and KODAK PERFECT TOUCH technology for better, brighter pictures
• One-touch social media uploads to Facebook®, MySpace, Picasa^TM and PhotoBucket®
• CrystalTalk^TM PLUS for enhanced audio and call quality with a second microphone for increased voice quality while filtering out background noise
• Corporate email pushed immediately to the device for instant inbox updates

Availability

Motorola CHARM with MOTOBLUR is expected to be available exclusively to T-Mobile USA customers this summer.  For more information on Motorola CHARM with MOTOBLUR, please visit here.  To view images please visit here

Source

To cut energy to one ten thousandth of current consumption might seem to be an impossible target, but according to a group of experts working on this challenge it is a realistic target. All that it needs are improved and more intelligent data coding techniques.

The group of researchers who are investigating this is called “Green Touch” and far from being a group of cranks, the group is being coordinated by the world leading Bell Research Laboratories in Murray hill, New Jersey USA. This is the very place where the transistor was invented, not to mention the laser.

The first objective is to reduce power use in telecommunications to 0.1 % of today’s levels by 2015. The amount of carbon dioxide that telecoms output to the atmosphere is currently 300,000,000 tons a year which is equivalent to 50,000,000 cars.

The plans involve developing better coding so that low power channels can be used without the risk of interference destroying data. Currently, in order to avoid interference, signal to noise ratios need to be high, and this means using high signal power levels, but if clever coding could avoid this risk then power levels could be reduced substantially.

Another energy saving technique is to bundle data that is sharing similar routes. Currently a considerable amount of energy is dissipated that could be avoided if bundling protocols could be developed.

A third way is to reduce the energy consumption of mobile phones and other hardware such as modems, and routers. Here the trick will be to develop ways in which these devices can go into a deep sleep mode where they effectively hibernate and use virtually no energy when they are not in use, but wake up very quickly when they are needed.

Another group is concentrating on improving the way in which we use our mobiles by providing us with energy saving settings along with accurate battery indicators so that we manage them more efficiently.

Assuming these important changes will take effect by 2015, it remains to see what will be real and what will be fiction.

Green Touch