Isaiah's Tech

Looks like there's another smartphone that Canada could be getting in the future. A lot of people have been talking about it and even WIND Mobile is thinking about it. They have just mentioned that they are "hoping" to have the Nokia N900 in early 2010. Let's hope that everything works out for them because that'll be an amazing feat and smartphone to have.

Maybe they'll launch the Google Nexus One in the future too. One can only dream...

[Mobile Syrup]
Picture Source: GSM Arena

10. Samsung (I8000) Omnia II - This phone is, obviously, the direct successor to the original Omnia and Samsung has changed it enough to impress me. The Omnia II has: a 3.7-inch AMOLED resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, a 5MP AF camera (with an LED flash, geo-tagging support, and face / smile detection) that's capable of shooting video at 720 x 480 resolution, a Samsung S3C6410 800MHz CPU with a dedicated graphics accelerator, 2/8/16GB of internal storage, 256MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g with DLNA / Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP / aGPS support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo FM radio with RDS, quad-band GSM / tri-band HSDPA connectivity, and a 1,500 mAh battery.

Samsung developed this new AMOLED display back in the beginning of June, so I'm glad to see that they're already shipping these out. I don't think anyone will be upset with the clarity of a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with a 480 x 800 resolution. I don't know how good the TouchWiz 2.0 UI, but I've heard that it's been greatly improved since version 1.0. Thankfully, it's just 11.9mm thick.

Unfortunately, the display is a resistive touchscreen so it's not as responsive as it could be. I tested this handset in stores and it was running Windows Mobile 6.5, but it was fairly sluggish - which made me quite sad. The widgets on the home screen were quite laggy and Samsung's customized UI is not as good as HTC's.


You can check out the Samsung (I8000) Omnia II here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

9. Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO - Here is a great QWERTY keyboard-packed phone and it has amazing specs. The OmniaPRO has: a 3.5-inch AMOLED resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5MP AF camera (with an LED flash, geo-tagging support, and face / smile detection) capable of recording D1 video (720 x 480 resolution), a Samsung S3C6410 800MHz CPU with a dedicated graphics accelerator, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g with DLNA / aGPS / Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo FM radio with RDS, quad-band GSM / dual-band HSDPA connectivity, and a 1,500 mAh battery.

Thankfully, it's got a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which is a great addition to any mobile phone. Like the Samsung I8000 Omnia II, this handset is also rocking Samsung's new AMOLED display that has a high 480 x 800 resolution. This is sure to bring you the crispest pictures and video you've ever seen on a mobile phone. An 800MHz CPU also joins the party, which is welcomed. This phone beat out the Samsung I8000 Omnia II simply because it has a physical QWERTY keyboard and the virtually identical spec sheet.

But, like I said, this phone has a resistive touchscreen display which is a let down. However, Samsung has placed their new "Advanced R Touch" technology on this handset. At this point, I don't know how much it will improve the touchscreen of the device. Another let down is, of course, the OS. Windows Mobile 6.5 hasn't received the best of reviews, but if you can get past the slight lag it'll do. WinMo is still quite good in the mobile OS world, they just need to improve the UI and the speed of it. Another bad thing is that it's 16.2mm thick, simply because of the QWERTY keyboard. A like it or hate it kind of thing is the back battery cover - it's red.

You can check out the Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

8. Nokia N900 - This is Nokia's first Maemo 5 device and I've read that the OS is quite nice, especially since it comes with full Flash support. The Nokia N900 features: a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, 32GB of internal storage, 256MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, a 5MP AF camera (with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash) capable of shooting WVGA video, WiFi b/g with DLNA / Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP / aGPS support, an ARM Cortex A8 600MHz CPU with PowerVR SGX graphics, an FM radio / transmitter, a secondary video calling camera, a TV output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, quad-band GSM / tri-band HSDPA connectivity, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

This handset comes with more goodies like Skype and Google Talk VoIP integration, which is great for the future. I'm sure Skype will integrate video into their mobile software soon, especially with Fring doing that with the iPhone and certain S60 devices. Hopefully they roll out support for my device soon, just saying.

Unfortunately no phone is perfect. The resistive touchscreen display isn't as responsive as people would've liked and it's fairly thick at 18mm. The thickness wouldn't bother me much though since I always have baggy pockets and the phone I have right now is 17.9mm (it's an N81) - and I don't mind it.


You can check out the Nokia N900 here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

What it doesn't tell us on the spec sheet is that the Satio is capable of playing PlayStation games in nHD (ninth High Definition) format. We don't know how well the Satio will play games, but it does have the same CPU as the iPhone 3GS, which is a good thing. We'll know more about the gaming capabilities of this phone in the future. The camera is more than impressive, but just remember that megapixels aren't everything. I should probably mention that you get an 8GB microSD card in the box.

As of right now, the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack has not been mentioned yet, so I'll assume that it doesn't have one. This is a huge let down to most people out there. The touchscreen is supposedly resistive, but it's not confirmed yet. The Satio runs on S60 and it's not as touch-friendly as some of the other OS's out there. Like the LG BL40 - which didn't make my list - it has a small 1,000 mAh battery.

You can check out the Sony Ericsson Satio (Idou) here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.




Besides the 8-megapixel goodness, the camera also comes equipped with: an LED-flash, geo-tagging support, face / smile / blink detection, and image stabilization. The 3.7-inch display is the largest AMOLED to hit a mobile phone, but unfortunately, it's not the best one to hit Samsung devices. The Samsung I8000 Omnia II - mentioned earlier - has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display as well, but it has an improved 480 x 800 resolution.

There's not much to dislike about this handset, but it does have a couple of underwhelming features. The i8910 Omnia HD runs on Symbian S60 5th Edition and it's not as touch-friendly as the iPhone OS. The browser also doesn't have Flash support right now, but that's limited to a few handsets at this point.

You can check out the Samsung i8910 HD here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

1. Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 - It wasn't a tough decision, even though I've always hated Sony Ericsson; I once hoped that they would just go bankrupt already, since they release the same cheap Walkman phones over and over again. However, the XPERIA X10 was made official about a month ago and the specs are pretty damn good. The XPERIA X10 is my number one phone to-date, even though it hasn't been released yet. Its specs are truly promising.
In addition, this phone is running a sexy and customized build of Android 2.0 (as seen here). And yes, I know what you're saying. How can this be your number one phone when it hasn't been released yet? Well, GSM Arena got their first look at this handset and mentioned that it is running a Qualcomm QSD8250 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.

What also makes the XPERIA X10 interesting is that it's looking like it will be Sony Ericsson's first Android handset, since they haven't announced anything else yet. Somewhere down the line though, it looks like Android devices will have multitouch support. 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display + 1GHz Snapdragon CPU + sexy and customized Android build + an 8MP camera = Love.

The bad thing about this handset is that it won't be available until early 2010. If you were to pick the Google Nexus One or the HTC HD2 over this handset, I couldn't and wouldn't argue with you. They're all great handsets, but the fact that this runs Android, has a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, and packs a 4-inch OLED touchscreen display are the real punch-out factors for me.

You can check out the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

A bunch of notables - in no specific order: LG GW820 eXpo, HTC Touch Pro 2, Toshiba TG01, Nokia N97, LG Viewty Smart, HTC Touch Diamond 2, LG Chocolate BL40, Palm Pre, HTC Touch HD, , Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2, Acer (A1) Liquid, Acer (F1) neoTouch, HTC Hero, and the HTC Dragon / Passion / Bravo.

Yes, those are a lot of honourable mentions, but that's only because there are so many high-end phones that could be on this list. This list may not be perfect and I tried to do my best judging each phone by its spec sheet and other reviews that I have read. It's my first time making a list of the top phones on my blog and I understand that I can improve it. All-in-all I'm satisfied with my list - it just sucks that they're all expensive unlocked.

Of course, there are still phones to look forward to later this year. There has been talks of Samsung's WiMAX-capable handset running Android; it's rumoured to hit Sprint sometime in the future. Another phone to look forward to is a Samsung handset that will be running on the Nvidia Tegra chipset, check it out here. If this trend continues, Samsung will overtake Nokia.

Although we don't know exactly when it'll be available Vodafone has just confirmed that they will be launching the Nokia N900 soon - aka sometime in January. Pricing isn't mentioned, but it'll likely be available for free on contract. Hopefully Vodafone doesn't decide to ditch this phone as soon as the iPhone 3GS is released like they did with the HD2.


[Mobile Crunch]

If you bought ordered your Nokia N900, we're hearing reports that it has just started to ship out. I'm really hoping that you ordered it from Amazon though and not Nokia's official store - since it's a lot cheaper. Yeah, it's a little bit delayed, but it's better than nothing.

[Engadget]

That was quick. Amazon US has already cut the price of the Nokia N900 to $479.99. This handset will, of course, be unlocked and will have: a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen display, an ARM Cortex A8 CPU, 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a 5MP camera, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Maemo, and a Flash-enabled browser. Check it out on Amazon's site here.

[Engadget]

Finally! It looks like Nokia now has the N900 for sale in the US. It's going for $649 in their flagship stores located in New York and Chicago, but if you check out Amazon it's only $509. This smartphone will be unlocked, but it's still pretty expensive - at least I think so.

[Engadget Mobile, Slash Gear]

There's not much to say here but Nokia appears to be shipping the N900's right now. It's been delayed a couple of times, but it's finally going to start arriving on peoples' doorsteps. Will Maemo be a good step for Nokia?

[Engadget]

There's a rumour going around that T-Mobile has an announcement coming up, codenamed "Project Black." No one knows exactly what it will be, but the rumours are mentioning that it's not a phone, but it's actually a "promotion." Exactly what this "promotion" will be has a lot of sources stumped. We'll just have to wait and see what it is - if it's real.

Update on October 11th: According to GSM Arena and Boy Genius, the latest rumour has it that T-Mobile will be launching a $50 unlimited everything plan. And, they may be launching the Nokia N900 and another N-Series device - possibly the N97 Mini - as well. Yes, these are all just rumours right now.

[Gizmodo]

So much for that September 27th date. It looks like the Nokia N900 has been pushed back a little bit. The Maemo 5 packing handset from Nokia looks like it will be available on October 26th if you believe Amazon UK here. On the other hand, Nokia Germany's website says that the N900 will be available on October 30th. I don't know which one to believe right now, but it looks like we're looking at a late October release date.

[Slash Gear]

According to the latest leaked information, the Nokia N900 will be hitting US retailers on September 27th. The good news here is that it's only 12 days away and Amazon now has it available for pre-order. Check out the official listing here, it's going for $649 USD.

Update on September 16th: The Nokia N900 listing just hit Amazon yesterday, but the price has already dropped. If you check out the N900 Amazon listing here, they've cut $60 off the price and it's now available for only $588.99 USD. Go and pre-orders yours now! I got this scoop from Nokia Phone Blog.

Nokia N900 Hitting US On September 27th: The Nokia Blog
Amazon Pre-Orders: The Nokia Blog

Did you remember that the Nokia N900 had a TV output? No? Okay, well I didn't either. Below is - I believe - the first video of the N900 using its TV output to display gaming on your large TV at home. Unfortunately, the N900 only has 2 pre-installed games and Nokia's N-Gage game download service will not be available for the N900, so that is a big let down. The N900 may not pack the same graphics power as the 3G iPod Touch or the iPhone 3GS, but it does have a native resolution of 480 x 800.



[Slash Gear]

Amazon now has the Nokia N900 up for pre-orders. It's priced at $649, which is similar to Nokia USA's offering, but the one on Amazon doesn't come with a free BH-703 Bluetooth headset. Check out the official listing here for more information.

[Pocketables]

Nokia is planning to launch their N900 smartphone to carriers eventually, but they have decided that they will be the boss of the relationship. According to Nokia themselves, they won't allow "carrier customization" on their Maemo-based handset.

Update: According to Electronista, Nokia changed their mind and mentioned that there are "many customization points" that carriers will have access to. Check out exactly what Nokia had to say here.

The N900 is running Maemo 5, so I figured it would be a great addition to talk about the future of Maemo on this post. Nokia has confirmed that Qt 4.6 "will be optimized for Maemo 6 but also see a port to the upcoming Symbian 4, as well as bringing with it improvements to the WebKit browser and a reduction in the need for widgets.". Maemo 6 is expected to launch next year and it looks like it will have multitouch and gesture support, which will be a great addition to those devices.

Update on September 12th: According to an angry tweet I received, the Maemo 5 browser is actually not based on WebKit. So, maybe Maemo 6's will be. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Engadget, Slash Gear]