After removing 450 employees from the payroll last September, Sony Ericsson is now planning to close down four of it’s facilities and lay-off 2000 employees worldwide.

The facilities that are planned to be shutdown are the facilities in RTP (North Carolina), Small Facilities(Miami, Seattle and San Diego), Sweden and Chennai. 2000 employees will be laid off and some of them will have the option of getting transfers to other places like Atlanta or California.

The process will take place in different steps, one at a time. This decision comes after incurring huge losses during the year. This maybe mainly due to the lack of competitive handsets from Sony Ericsson. Hopefully Sony Ericsson comes back with the launch of the XPERIA X10 which looks to be a very promising device. At least, lets hope that the employees get their jobs back.

Source

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Looks like there has been some confusion amongst blogs and the media about the August 9th launch date.In the Apple Keynote way back in June,this slide shown below says iPhone 3GS coming to india in Aug ‘09 which means Aug 2009 and not August 9th. Apple India were not reachable for an explanation !

In the meanwhile chk out our Apple iPhone 3GS Review – First on FoneArena

Its just insane when almost the rest of the world has got the iPhone 3GS and India being the 2nd largest market in the world for mobile handsets is still waiting !

In the meanwhile chk out our Apple iPhone 3GS Review – First on FoneArena

• Apple iPhone 3GS Price and India Launch Date
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Nokia N97 Features:

• 3.5″ Resistive Touchscreen with 360*640 Resolution
• 32GB Flash Memory and micro-SD card slot
• Accelerometer, Handwriting Recognition, QWERTY Keyboard, 3.5mm Audio Jack
• GPRS, EDGE, HSCSD, HSDPA, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, micro-USB
• 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss Camera, Autofocus, LEd Flash, 30fps VGA Video Recording
• 434mHz Processor, 128MB RAM, 1500mAH battery

HTC Touch Pro 2 Features

• 3.6″ TFT Capacitive Touchscreen (480*800 resolution)
• Accelerometer, QWERTY Keyboard, Touch Flo 3D, Handwriting Recognition
• 88MB RAM, micro-SD card slot
• GPRS, EDGE, HSCSD, HSDPA, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mini-USB
• 3.15 Megapixel Camera, Autofocus, VGA Video Recording
• 528mHz Processor, 1500mAH Battery

both n97 and touch pro 2 have a lot of similarities

accuweather on n97 and htc weather widget

n97 vs htc touch pro 2 display

s60 vs vs windows mobile 6.1

Weather again

Calendar

Homescreen

nokia n97 homescreen is a winner with widgets

• Nokia N97 vs Samsung OMNIA HD Photo Gallery
• Samsung OMNIA HD vs HTC Touch Pro 2 Photo Gallery
• HTC Touch Pro Unboxing Pics
• Nokia N97 Black Unboxing Video
• HTC’s new launch – Touch Pro with QWERTY keypad

The unit was the black one , and we have exclusive pics for your viewing pleasure !

Everything from the chrome trim to the slide mechanism for the keyboard was fantastic. It truly felt like a phone worthy of it’s price tag.

You’ll notice the Facebook widget. We also had a chance to view the Mapping program (was slightly buggy when we used it).

Check below for more pictures. Also note: This was a prototype device and we were told that the keyboard on this model was quite different from the production model.

5 MP Camera with Shutter and Dual LED Flash.

We could not click photos using the camera , so refer to the n97 camera samples.

The phone is expected to hit stores in June.  Its the most anticipated Nokia handset according to the specs and the buzz

• Nokia N97 to be Available for Purchase in June
• Nokia N86 launches as N86 8MP with 8 MegaPixel Camera
• Nokia N97 Gets Reviewed in Russia
• Nokia N97: Glory In Images
• Nokia N97 Mini gets clicked at with the N97

Here are the shots of a luxury high end mobile phone called Belleperre Nero Gold.

The Belleperre company designs phones in Italy and the phones are handmade in Holland. The Belleperre is on par with luxury companies like Mobiado and Vertu (Nokia).

The Nero Gold is the latest mobile from Belleperre. It is made of high-quality materials and can be custom made according to the customer’s requirements. The phone measures 100*44*15.5mm and weighs in at 120grams which is quite light for a luxury phone.

The customer can chose different metal rims like aluminium, steel, gold, silver, platinum etc and lather trims like buffalo leather, crocodile leather, shark leather etc in more than 100 colours. The screen is scratch-proof sapphire crystal. There is no piece of plastic on it’s body and it’s body is brushed black metal. The buttons are made of gold/silver.

The cost of the phone is not yet known.

Source

• Gresso enters luxury phone market
• The luxurious Motorola AURA
• The Mobiado Camo handset
• Tennis Star Jelena Jankovic launching the Blingy Sony Ericsson Phone
• Worlds Most Expensive Mobile Phones

You must be aware that, in the past many mobile phone manufacturers came out with various handsets having support to use two active SIM cards in a single mobile phone simultaneously. One of the first among such dual SIM manufacturer were Chinese producers and followed the Chinese manufacturers were some other leading mobile manufacturers like Spice, and others. Well, these phones is used by many users in India and I have personally seen many of my friends using these multi SIM support handsets.

Because of the poor services by mobile service providers, all mobile phone users always try to have a backup connection so that none of their calls can be missed out. Infact, I personally carry at least one active SIM card of all operators (around 7) in my area so that at least one will be working fine incase of emergency situation.

But, unlike SIM cards one cannot carry 3-5 handsets with different service providers’ SIM cards in it. So, for such peoples. the recently launched Triple SIM supported phone is best suited. According to reports, this handset is manufactured by a UAE based handset manufacturer and can hold upto 3 different SIM cards at a time (but 2 SIM can only be activated simultaneously).

More details about the handset will be made available only when it hits the Indian markets. Till then keep viewing the only available, blurry image of the triple SIM supported ZTC handset.

• Dual SIM PDA from Spice
• Will Multiple SIM Phones be Banned Permanently in India?
• New Dual Sim offering from Samsung – D780 Duos

Yes, well that just wasn’t their one and only prediction for 2012. They also stated that we will be running 1Ghz CPUs in our phones, will enjoy full HD for video recording and XGA screen resolution, and will be browsing the web at 100 Mbps. Sweet.

But just today, we received confirmation that their predictions might be well on track. They made a very interesting announcement for their new Exmor CMOS image sensor lineup. The lineup includes a 5MP, an 8MP and the grand finale, a 12MP camera sensor. The best news is that it might just hit the street in mid2009!

Wow, Sony, just wow! Now how about making a wider availability of optical zooms, getting better lenses and coding better imaging software, and implementing HD video recording before 2012 for a change? We love Megapixels, but honestly, after 8MP, it gets silly to keep running after the numbers.

[Source: Sony Ericsson 2012 Predictions and Sony Ericsson Exmor lineup]

• Toshiba Announces 14.6MP CMOS Sensor for Cellphones
• Nokia N86 launches as N86 8MP with 8 MegaPixel Camera
• Samsung launches Pixon12 in India
• Samsung M8910 Pixon- 12MP Cameraphone!
• Nokia N86 8MP launched in Chennai , available in stores in India

Additional features include a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, instant

messaging and TV out for image sharing. The Nokia 7610 Supernova also offer a dedicated music key, FM radio, an MP3 player and access to Nokia Music Store (where available) via the Nokia Music PC Client.

There are 3 more Supernova phones lined up for release. These include 7510, 7310 and 7210. While Nokia 7510 is a clamshell design, 7310 and 7210 are candybar phones.

The Nokia 7510 Supernova also features a 2-megapixel camera (with a new proprietary processing algorithm
for better pictures in poor lighting conditions), a 512MB microSD card, a 2.2-inch QVGA display and a new Nokia web browser providing access to Nokia Search, Share on OVI and Flickr. The phone will retail for about 180 EUR.

Nokia 7310 Supernova

Nokia 7310 will be priced around 155 EUR while 7210 will be around 120 EUR and will be available in 3rd Quarter of 2008.

• Nokia Supernova is here – 3 new handsets that redefine slick
• 7 New Low Cost Phones from Nokia for the New Year 2009
• Nokia Music Store is Live in India
• Early Pics : Nokia 2220 Slide

Coming to the new model, Samsung B200(Guru 200) offers a unique feature which is still unknown at the entry level phones, FM RECORDING. So for this model this could well be the deal breaker. This definitely offers a competitive edge over the previous model and few other entry level handsets.

It also houses a built-in FM radio tuner and recording feature that lets users record live radio shows and use them later as alarms or custom ringtones. Cricket and Sudoku are a couple of pre-installed Java games and there is also a Mobile tracker and Emergency SMS feature. Another important and useful feature is the Call Time Limit feature that allows users to create a monthly limit for hours during calls. An Indian calendar will also be built-in, featuring local holidays and the Hinglish database.

This handset also offers the 9 hours continous talk time feature . I also hope it has similar innovative ad schemes that are really attractive.

The Samsung Guru200 will be available in India for Rs. 2,999.

None Found

• Germany says Boycott Nokia
• Nokia announces closure of Bochum facility
• Nokia Germany workers to get jobs in Nokia Romania factory