The tentative date is scheduled for June of this year but we would not be surprised if Samsung missed said launch date as NFC is still being rolled out and will not be completely ready until later this year. This news will probably receive a mixed reaction from Samsung fans. The extra functionality NFC provides is certainly welcome, but there are bound to be a few people who’ve already picked up an S II without the NFC chip who are disappointed not to have receive NFC support with their phones.

Mobot has quoted a representative from Samsung who said: “Regarding your query, kindly note we have received a confirmation that the Near Field Communication ‘NFC’ version of the Galaxy S II should be available in the UK by June 2011.”

Source: Mobot

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The different parts of the proposed spectrum that is supposed to be auctioned off would bring the capacity to fill the spectrum with fourth generation data connections that have figurative speeds of up to 100Mbps although it should be noted that actual speeds will be far less than that.

Ofcom is also stipulating that whichever company successfully acquires the spectrum will be required to provide 95% of the British population with high speed broadband data connections by the end of 2017. This would facilitate in the improving of data connections in part of the country where data connections are not that strong.

Thanks to the switch from analog to digital TV, much of the bandwidth has been freed up which fits within the 800MHz spectrum. The parts of the spectrum which are up for grabs are over 80% more then what was available during 2000.

Just like in the United States, the two competing technologies for 4G, both WiMAX and LTE are not yet agreed on and it is not sure what carriers will ultimately decide on. Furthermore, the International Telecommunication Union’s Radiocommunication Sector has ruled that neither LTE nor WiMAX is sufficiently advanced to be truly considered a 4G technology. But that has not stopped carriers such as Verizon and Sprint from calling their respective LTE and WiMAX networks 4G and we highly doubt that will stop any in the UK from doing so as well, no matter what the International Telecommunication Union’s Radiocommunication Sector has to say on the matter.

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We’ll be prepared to have more rumours thrown at you for your reading pleasure. According to the China Times, NFC support is definitely coming to the iPhone 5. More importantly, the newspaper confirms that the phone will receive a 4-inch screen along with a redesigned antenna. The paper goes on to say that there will be a “metal chassis to improve antenna sensitivity” (if Google Translate works right) as well as a new scratch resistant glass over the screen.

Traditionally the updated iPhone has launched in July of the year, but according to China Times, this launch is expected to be pushed back until the third quarter of the year which still pegs it around July but means we could be playing with the months of August and September as well. This would make a 6 month gap between the launch of the iPhone 5 and iPad 2, but bring the iPhone 5 closer to the company’s annual musical event where it announces its new iPod’s and additions to the iTunes store every year.

Other speculation claims the iPhone 5 will sport the same A5 processor as the iPad 2 which should be no surprise to anyone as last generations iPhone 4 did the same thing as well.

Source: Cnet

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First up is the Samsung Galaxy S S2 Mini which is listed among the company’s “High End” line. The launch for said device will take place in April and among other things, those who decide to drop some money on this will get 21Mbps HSDPA support as well as a 5MP camera around back and a VGA front facing camera. Android Gingerbread is the operating system of source and that 1.4GHz processor will be able to power everything the device has to offer including support for Wi-Fi hotspot.

The HTC Desire S will come in April and will be categorized within the company’s “Mid” tier range. 5MP camera around back with a 4-inch WVGA display (Super LCD) and HSDPA 7.2Mbps as well as 4GB of Memory and a 1GHz processor.

Those interested in playing on the Xperia Play will have to wait till April and the company is listing this device as their “Flagship” phone. With Gingerbread, 5MP camera, 1GHz processor that supports 60fps along with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, we wouldn’t see why not. Oh and the phone comes preloaded with FIFA 2011 among others.

LG’s Optimus 3D is also being listed among the company’s “Flagship” devices and will drop in June. Dual 5MP cameras with Android Gingerbread and 8Gb of memory with full 1080p HD shooting and of course HSDPA support up to 10.2 HSUPA.

Rounding out things is the HTC Flyer which drops in May and the Wi-Fi only Blackberry Playbook which will launch in June.

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According to Google, the amount of devices running the very first version of Android, version 1.5 is sitting at only 3%. The step up to that carries a bit more hitting the 4.8% margin. As for Android 2.1 Éclair, we have a modest 29% of devices who are living with that version, most of which are waiting on either their device manufacturer or service provider to push out an update to bump them up to 2.3 (hint, hint Samsung) which currently controls 61.3% of all devices. Those are pretty big numbers for Google who has been plagued by media questioning whether or not the fragmentation of Android is a bigger problem than many claims it is. Albeit, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), only has 0.7% of device hearts at the moment and the step up to that, 2.3.3 carries a +0.3% difference. As for Honeycomb, the first operating system built specifically for tablets (in Google’s words, not ours), there is a 0.2% user share.

All in all, these are good numbers for Google who has been pushing out updates ever so timely as it tries to stay ahead of the curve. Not bad if you ask us and seeing that the company is about to face steep competition from Nokia and Microsoft thanks to their new found love, we’d say that the company does indeed have something going for them. If only they can keep it up.

Source: Android.com

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The service provider revealed the plans for the e-money system and their plans to get a license from the Financial Service Authority this year. Thanks to such a license, O2 would be able to offer person to person money transfers between its customers.

Currently, Google’s Nexus S supports near-field communication which allows devices within a close proximity to communicate information. It has also been widely rumored that the upcoming iPhone 5 will support the feature. The iPhone 5 is said to be coming to AT&T and Verizon in the United States and Vodofone in the UK.

Coupled with the payment system and application, O2 would position itself as a leader in NFC technology allowing users to tap their phones in order to make payments. This technology has been touted by many analysts as the biggest revolution in payment systems since the credit card came out decades ago.

O2 has gone ahead and formally trialed it’s NFC payment system using a Nokia unit. According to the carrier, after much trial and testing, the company was confident that now was the right time to move ahead and that it would be a success.
Of course, that is yet to be seen, but with major companies such as Verizon, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Google, LG, Samsung and others getting behind the technology, its adoption could move a lot faster than expected and we could begin seeing multiple implementations before the end of the year.

Source: PCR

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According to reports from the Carphone Warhouse stocks are extremely tight this season. The customer interest generated since the news of the price slash is already more than expected. And the stocks at both the stores of Carphone Warhouse and Best Buy UK are pretty limited. And the competition, as expected will be high. So you better act fast if you are truly interested in checking this product.

The Carphone Warhouse reports that all its branches would be taking orders via instant ship delivery. This will allow customers to purchase the new item at any of the stores of their convenience.

The new reduced price of the Google Nexus S is definitely attracting customers’ interests. There have been no exact reasons explained as to what has led to the reduction in the price. The original price of the Nexus S was £550 and being too steep a price tag was cause of concern of poor sales suggestion. Perhaps, that prompted Google to this move to revise the price making it more customer friendly.

The Carphone Warhouse is happy to announce the sales of Google’s new smart phone at this attractive price of £430. Customers will be able to buy the Nexus S phone from Google only from the Carphone Warhouse and Best Buy UK stores. The revised price is definitely going to make the handset more tenable. According to confirmation from the Carphone Warhouse sources, all those customers who have pre ordered the Nexus S are going to get the benefit of the offer.

So if you are planning to pick your Google Nexus S this holiday from the nearest Carphone Warhouse or Best Buy UK stores you better get cracking, since official reports suggest that stocks are limited the competition will be high.

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Nokia did not scrimp on features with the Nokia C7 smartphone. It has the superior AMOLED display that uses less energy yet provides a brighter picture than the older LCD format. Nokia gave it 360 by 640 pixels of power and their special Clearblack treatment to make using the C7 an enjoyable experience. It has both an accelerometer and a proximity sensor for convenience. The size is three and a half inches, the same as the iPhone. There is no manual keyboard for the C7.

On uppercrust smartphones from Nokia, a user can usually find some nice wireless features. This C7 has all the Wi-Fi modes as well as EDGE, GPRS, bluetooth and 3G. It also has a stereo FM radio and transmitter. What would use that transmitter for ? It comes in handy when carrying the C7 in a car. Broadcasting music to the radio prevents having to use a cable connection. To top it off, the bluetooth is up to version 3.0 which is ten times faster than older versions.

The Nokia C7 is sporting the Symbian^3 mobile operating system. It is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. It is a spinoff from S60 and comes with the powerful Ovi Maps turn by turn system for free. The C7 is the second smartphone from Nokia to use the Symbian^3 system. The N8 flagship handset was the first.

The camera on the Nokia C7 is one notch under the reigning champion, the N8. It is eight megapixels in power and is packed with features. It is high enough in quality to produce high definition video in 720p format. Nokia was generous and also gave the C7 a front-facing secondary camera for video calling. You can now pick up a Nokia C7 on contract or for around €335 euros up-front.

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Outstanding Multimedia features

Despite being a QWERTY slider and one of the heaviest at 180g, the HTC Desire Z is one of the slimmest slider smartphones with just a 14.2mm profile. The 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen is identical with those used in the new batches of HTC Desire handsets after the company abandoned AMOLED in favor of Super LCD after Samsung failed to deliver the needed volume. They both have WVGA (489 x 800) resolution, 16 million colors, proximity and accelerometer sensors and multitouch input technology.

Its camera sports a 5-megapixel resolution that is now fairly standard on most smartphones and features the same geo tagging, face detecting, autofocus and LED flash. But one thing that stands out is its high definition 720p video recording ability. Entertainment starts with its stereo FM radio with RDS the usual medial players and a 3.5mm headphone jack and A2DP support. You get to store all your multimedia files on either its onboard 1.5 GB user memory or on microSD card up to 32GB.

Mobile Telephony Features

Under the hood is an 800 MHz Qualcomm MDM7230 engine running the Android v2.2 Froyo. Its data and radio connectivity options include a quad band GSM radio on 2G and dual band UMTS on 3G.

Its 2G data speeds has Class 32 GPRS/EDGE while 3G data speeds get HSDPA at 14.14 Mbps and HSUPA at 5.7 Mbps. It has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA for hotspot internet while local data transfers enjoy Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0. There’s also GPS and A-GPS. You get 9.8 hours of talk time on 2G and 430 hours of standby time from a 1300 mAh Li-ion battery.

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Social Networking is Still Key

If there is one thing that really works for the Nokia Touch and Type handset, it is the fact that it combines connectivity with social networking. As much as mobile phones have originally been created for calling and later, for text messaging, it is hard to deny that social networking is the new medium of communication for many people.

First off, the device supports 3G and WiFi –this along brings enough connectivity for users wherever they may be. With the fast and stable connection speeds for both 3G and WiFi networks it is pretty easy to see how this mobile handset will keep users online and up to date.

Of course, the second important factor is the integrated social networking features. The handset brings Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging through Yahoo and Windows Live for users to be able to access instantly from the phone menu.

Better Typing Methods

Typing on the Nokia Touch and Type is a breeze. Initially, one would be a little disoriented at having the 4 column layout as opposed to the usual 4 row set found in regular T9 keypads. But that is not really an issue. Give any user a few moments of using the device and they will be typing out messages pretty fast. Being able to use the resistive touch screen to move around the message also makes editing and scrolling a whole lot faster as well. Of course, Nokia always like to give their customers options, so if you really don’t fancy learning your way around the 4 column keypad, there’s always the Nokia C3 Touch and Type.

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