Mobile Phones Blog

Motorola’s highly successful Razr flip-phone has undergone a Ten Years Younger-esque makeover - manufacturers have shaved a couple of millimetres off of the total area taken up by the phone, and dressed the handset up in a more resilient steel jacket and added an improved external display screen (dimensions: 2.0″, 320 x 240 dpi, 262K colours), which matches the resolution and display quality of the main interior screen, which is a slightly bigger 2.2″ across.

The slimmer, new-look Razr-² models come with Bluetooth 2.0 and a set of assigned music keys, making this an ideal handset for music fans who can easily listen to and move audio files across other Bluetooth-enabled platforms. The 1.3 megapixel camera of previous Razr incarnations has also been pimped up to a size of 2.0 with an improved 8x digital zoom for increased sharpness and detail.

These features make the Razr-² a serious competitor to the popular Nokia N95 which also features in its unique dual-slide design a designated keypad for the music playing function. The V9 Razr-² will also be fully HSDPA compatible, and will be able to run music programs such as iTunes mobile - these features makes the Razr-² a serious competitor to several of the new generation of ’smartphones’ such as the equally stylish LG PRADA, the aforementioned N95, and the forthcoming Apple iPhone.

The Razr-² will be available in three versions, the V8, V9 and V9M; the V8 is set to go on sale in July and the V9 to be released sometime in the autumn/Q3. The three Razr-² models are all similar in functionality but have differing levels of memory and processor speeds; for a full spec comparison, check out Motorola’s site.

Orange has revealed the results of an interesting survey which shows how we are now using our mobiles. The network reports that we are now using our phones as entertainment centres for music, videos and games.

Orange's digital media index shows that its customer base sent around 872 million text messages per month, with the vast majority sent between 4pm and 8pm as people plan nights out. Picture messaging seems to suffer though, with only 5.4 million messages being sent on a monthly basis.

Internet use is a growing area of the mobile market and Orange saw more than 2.1 million customers accessing the net each month. Games are also a growing sector, 750,000 of them were downloaded in the first three months of the year. Sonic the hedgehog was the top pick (I remember having that on the mega drive and thinking it was the peak of technology, I'm old!) with Worms and Space Invaders anniversary edition in second and third place respectively. The average age of the mobile gamer is around 30, presumably as the handsets needed to play decent games are usually tied in to high end tariffs.

The youth end of the market is where the majority of music downloads take place with over 250,000 tracks per month being downloaded. Wall paper is also very popular and judging by the number of downloads it seems to be fifteen year old boys leading the field, WWE girls and WWE divas being incredibly popular. Little Timmy obviously wants his mobile to match the posters on his wall.

- The index also shows mobile video movie trailers remain incredibly popular. The Simpsons movie trailer is the current number one, with more of little Timmy's lust objects appearing in the 'babes' category. After that the dark recesses of the mobile entertainment market take over with 'adult' content accounting for 4% of mobile video downloads. When the older demographic aren't playing Sonic they are obviously doing something else. Ahem;moving swiftly on.

Mobile TV is also growing in popularity with sporting events scoring highest. The cricket world cup proved to be a winner, the live channel topped the charts as the highest viewed channel for the entire quarter. This proves that live sport is crucially important to mobile TV and could be the key to increasing it’s popularity.

So there you go, we are using our mobiles for entertainment purposes far more often. Whether it's watching the football, downloading music or viewing something a little bit more 'suspect', entertainment on your mobile phone is now a reality.

The latest announcement from the handset giant concerns the new smartphone and successor to the P990, the P1. You couldn't really call the P1 a revolutionary smartphone but its roster of features certainly makes interesting reading.

Imaging is handled by a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, which is a more than capable camera for a smartphone. It also weighs in with 3G support, WiFi and the ability to make video calls. The P1 has a 2.6” 262,000 colour TFT touchscreen display with QVGA resolution. When you add a QWERTY keyboard, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and expandable memory to this ever expanding list it's hard not to be even a little bit impressed.

The phone is an evolution of previous models and even the most ardent Sony Ericsson fanboy or girl would be hard pressed to say that the P1 was in any way original. But the combination of features could make it a hit. We'll find out around autumn this year when the handset is expected to reach the European market.

Research in motion, makers of the Blackberry will be feeling pretty besieged at the moment. Sony Ericsson's announcement of the P1 has been swiftly followed by the launch of Motorola's Q9 smartphone. The Q9 combines a sleek advanced look with some truly fearsome technical features. The software in the Q9 is based on the Windows mobile 6 operating system and it possesses a dual processor HSDPA/UMTS engine. This enables over the air downloads at broadband speeds (up to 3.6Mbps). You'll be able to download tracks direct to the Q9 and it could take a mere six seconds without having to go near a computer.

It has to be said that it looks very, very similar to a blackberry; the QWERTY keyboard even has a similar feel to the blackberry 8700. The screen is a good size and seems to be able to output clear images and it has a good range of colours. The obligatory 2 megapixel camera appears with 8x digital zoom and captures video up to 15 frames per second.

Smartphones are becoming ever more popular, so it's no surprise to see Motorola getting in on the act. The Q9 appeals to the business crowd and to tech savvy media junkies who like entertainment on the move. You'll be able to see the Q9 on this site very soon.