Lenovo, the giant Chinese electronics manufacturer mainly known for producing desktop PCs and laptops, announced it will quit the mobile phone industry and sell its mobile division
for $100 million to Legend Holdings Ltd., one of its main shareholders.

2007 was a great financial year for Lenovo, with overall profits of $171 million, a huge increase when compared to 2006’s profits that raised to $57.7. Despite this, the company’s mobile business is far from being profitable, as it made losses of 134 million CNY (about $18.6 million) in the last year.

Lenovo entered the mobile business in 2001 and limited its handset distribution to China, but in the last years it started producing devices based on Windows Mobile with the intention of penetrating other markets, like Europe and North America. However, this did not happen, and the Lenovo handsets remained in China. Apparently, the Chinese market – where phones from Nokia and Motorola have a huge demand – is not suitable for Lenovo’s mobile plans, otherwise the company’s losses cannot be explained.

Lenovo is currently the world’s fourth largest personal computer manufacturer, after HP (Hewlett-Packard), Dell and its Taiwan-based neighbor Acer. It reached this position after acquiring IBM’s PC division, back in 2005. By selling its mobile branch, Lenovo will be able to concentrate on its main PC business, at the same time allowing the mobile business to overcome the loss-generating period and re-think its market strategies.

After completing the acquisition of Lenovo Mobile, Legend Holdings will continue to produce handsets under the Lenovo brand and will probably try to conquer a bigger portion of the Chinese market share. Also, we might see Lenovo phones expand to Europe and North America, as initially planned. This can only be a good thing, as a bigger competition generally means better products – better mobile phones, in our case.

via softpedia

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Luxury cell phones are not a new thing anymore, but they keep on appearing to satisfy the fashion needs of those who have larger bank accounts. SoftBank, a leading Japanese mobile carrier,
partnered with Tiffany Japan to bring such a phone, that will be sold for 10 million Japanese Yens, meaning about $93,600. It cannot compete against the world’s most expensive phone, Goldvish Le Million, which costs more than 1 million USD, but it’s still a terribly expensive device.

The handset comes encrusted in no less than 400 diamonds, totaling a bit over 20 carats, and will be available starting this month, most probably before Valentine’s Day, to make an extravagant gift.

There aren’t many technical details about the Tiffany handset, except the fact that it’s a 3G device. However, judging by the specs the other SoftBank phones announced for 2008 have, this diamonded clamshell might pack a good photo camera and even Mobile TV features.

The real manufacturer of the phone is unknown for the moment, but it sure isn’t Tiffany, known mainly for being one of the most respectable US jewelry brands. It’s hard to believe they have a secret cell phone division, so it is more likely that they only worked on the handset’s luxurious cover. Most probably, as the phone seems to be a clamshell resembling the majority of the phones released in Japan (except the diamonds, of course), the non-jewelry part was created by a Japanese producer. So it could be a Sharp, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Sanyo or Hitachi. Hard to tell.

The new Tiffany phone is available only from SoftBank starting February, as a limited number edition, so the Japanese men who want to offer their lovers a flower and hundreds of diamonds on a phone should quickly pay a visit to their bank for a small withdrawal.

Popularity: 82% [?]

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Intel, the Californian chip maker, revealed backwards in September 2007 an original mobile conception, related to Apple’s iPhone but with a duration that surpasses any new modern handset’s duration (and that, of class, isn’t a better matter at all. But Intel said the original device, which isn’t really a mobile telephone but an UMPC with telephone capabilities, brings the Moorestown platform with Silverthorne processor and is able to offer a 10x reduction in power usage.
Along with the iPhone-like pattern and touchscreen interface, that should have a pretty better device, right? Well, until now it is simply a nonfunctional conception and it’s not clear-cut whether it will be commercially available or not.

At this year’s CES, Intel came not simply with the past mentioned handset, but with an entire scope of iPhone-ish prototype devices based on Silverthorne processors. Unlike the UMPC unveiled last year, some of the original devicesare fully functional and are also prepared to be launched during 2008.

The devices are powered by the Intel Menlow mobile program and are presented as being capable to outstrip any new device of this sort by using really less battery ability. This performance is achieved thanks to a chemical element known as Hafnium, used on transistors to prevent energy leaks.

One of the functional Intel mobile devices, unnamed yet, comes as an UMPC with a User Interface similar to iPhone’s and a full sliding QWERTY keyboard. Apparently, the device will hit the market in the second quarter of 2008, packed with either 3G or WiMAX, not both – in order to reduce the device’s cost and the battery life. Other details about the future Intel mobile device are not available.

Currently, Intel powers Apple’s Mac computers and it’s said that the next iPhone, the 2.0 edition, will also pack Intel processors, more exactly the Silverthorne ones. We’re now waiting to see how Intel’s own iPhone-ish devices will be and how they can influence the mobile industry.

via softpedia

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A mysterious new mobile application called Pointui Home Beta 0.92 System which is a look-alike of iPhone user interface is coming in just before 2008 New Year’s Day.

Not much details on this mobile app except that it appears to be an enhancement of Windows Mobile. Check out the YouTube for the video shown above.

source mobilewhack

Popularity: 40% [?]

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There’s no lack of third-party gaming applications for the iPhone as it is - we have NES games, card games, puzzle games, and so on - and now we have PlayStation games. As expected, the psx4iPhone application has just been released through Installer.app, basically turning your iPhone into a PSP with touchscreen controls!

The developer, zodtt, had previously kept their iPhone PlayStation emulator private - only accessible through a paid-beta program. Well, now us lay-folk can have at it. Fire up your Installer.app and find psx4iPhone. Install the emulator and you’re ready to start installing PlayStation ROM’s!

Install the SSH client that is freely available through Installer.app and transfer (via SFTP - CyberDuck works great on Macs) your PS ROMs to the iPhone. Find your iPhone’s IP address by viewing the details of the WiFi connection (hit the little arrow to the right of the connection name). SFTP to your iPhone’s IP address and upload the ROM to the /var/root/Media/ROMs/PSX directory. That’s it, you’ll be up and running in no time.

We have a feeling that a good number of productive hours are going to be spent playing PlayStation games on our iPhone. Oh well.

Check the video below to see how psx4iPhone works.

via intomobile

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This is 1.43 million bucks-worth of telephone. It is hideous. Made by Swiss company Goldvish, the Le Million (what a name, just reeks of (cl)ass, doncha think?) comes in a choice of red, yellow or white gold. Tastefully studded with diamonds and what looks like crocodile skin (although surely croc is far too prosaic for such a phone, perhaps skin from something found in a freezer in Roswell might be more keeping with the exclusiveness of this—this thing) it’s not available for just any old pleb, you know.

Just three units are available—yes, you too could be one of the top three plonkers in the world should you choose to become one in Le Million club. Anyway, they’re on sale in Russia now, so perhaps Vladimir Putin, with the Man of the Year’s fortune recently estimated by some to be as much as $40 billion, would like to snap up all three, gifting one to Hu, one to Bush, and keeping the red one for himself.

via gizmodo

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After the Buddha Golden phone created in China was spotted these days on the Internet, another unusual phone appeared from the Yellow River’s country. Called the X-Phone, this new device comes to surprise mobile users with its design. If the surprise is a good or a bad one depends on what kind of user evaluates the phone.

The X-Phone has a candybar form and its plastic case together with the big and green X under the display makes it look like a toy-phone, hence a kid would sure be surprised in a good way. Its size (102 x 45 x 13 millimeters and 82 grams) would suit perfectly any high-end mobile phone, but I’m afraid the X-phone’s features make it rather an entry-level one.

The handset packs a 1.8 inch 260K color display with a 176 x 220 pixel resolution, assorted with a 1.3 Megapixel camera that will not be able to provide good quality photos. Furthermore, the green X-phone includes a media and music player (no details about the supported formats), a large speaker, positioned in the back, and microSD card slot. No other specifications are known, like the OS the phone runs on, the internal memory or the battery’s power.

We must say that there are other two phones named “Xphone”, coming under the O2 brand. The first one dates from 2003, but the second, O2 Xphone II, is quite new and it’s a tri-band GSM/GPRS smartphone that offers many nice features and a cool design, therefore having nothing to do with the Chinese X-phone.

Back to the green X, there are no details about the phone’s availability or about its price, but we can assume the device can’t retail for more than 200 USD. Or, if it does, then there’s something rotten in Denmark. Erm, I mean China.

via softpedia

Popularity: 9% [?]

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